HONORE    DE    BALZAC 

TRANSLATED    BY 

KATHARINE     PRESCOTT    WORMELEY 


/^ 


•  MODESTE    MIGNON 


ROBERTS     BROTHERS 


3     SOMERSET     STREET 


BOSTON 

1891 


Copyright,  1888, 
By  Roberts  Brothers. 


All  rights  reserved. 


©ntbersttg  fhrss : 
John  Wilson  and  Son,   Cambridge. 


Eo  a  ^olisfj  ILalrg. 

Daughter  of  an  enslaved  land,  angel  through  love,  witch 
through  fancy,  child  by  faith,  aged  by  experience,  man  in 
brain,  woman  in  heart,  giant  by  hope,  mother  through  sor- 
rows, poet  in  thy  dreams,  —  to  Thee  belongs  this  book,  in 
which  thy  love,  thy  fancy,  thy  experience,  thy  sorrow,  thy 
hope,  thy  dreams,  are  the  warp  through  which  is  shot  a 
woof  less  brilliant  than  the  poesy  of  thy  soul,  whose  ex- 
pression, when  it  shines  upon  thy  countenance,  is,  to  those 
who  love  thee,  what  the  characters  of  a  lost  language  are 
to  scholars. 

DE  BALZAC. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  The  Chalet 1 

II.  A  Portrait  from  Life 14 

III.  Preliminaries 23 

IV.  A  Simple  Story 35 

V.  The  Problem  still  Unsolved     ....  46 

VI.  A  Maiden's  First  Romance 58 

VII.  A  Poet  of  the  Angelic  School.     ...  70 

VIII.  Blade  to  Blade 86 

IX.  The  Power  of  the  Unseen 99 

X.  The  Marriage  of  Souls 109 

XI.  What  comes  of  Correspondence     .     .     .  123 

XII.  A  Declaration  of  Love,  —  set  to  Music  133 

XIII.  A  Full-length  Portrait  of  Monsieur  de 

La  Briere .  147 

XIV.  Matters  grow  Complicated 163 

XV.  A  Father  Steps  In 179 

XVI.  Disenchanted 196 

XVII.  A  Third  Suitor 203 

XVIII.  A  Splendid  First  Appearance    ....  217 

XIX.  Of    which    the    Author   thinks   a    good 

Deal 230 


// 


/' 


vm 

CHAPTER 

XX. 
XXL 

XXII. 
XXIII. 
XXIV. 

XXV. 

XXVI. 

XXVIL 

XXVIII. 

XXIX 


Contents, 

PAGE 

The  Poet  does  his  Exercises      .     .     .  245 

Modeste  Plays  her  Part 258 

A  Riddle  Guessed 271 

Butscha  Distinguishes  Himself  .     .     .  283 
The  Poet  feels  that  he  is  Loved  too 

Well 293 

A  Diplomatic  Letter 307 

True  Love 317 

A  Girl's  Revenge 327 

Modeste  behaves  with  Dignity  .     .     .  336 

Conclusion 345 


f   THE  r 

UNIVERSITY 

MODESTE    MIGNON. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE   CHALET. 

At  the  beginning  of  October,  1829,  Monsieur  Simon 
Babylas  Latournelle,  notary,  was  walking  up  from 
Havre  to  Ingouville,  arm  in  arm  with  his  son  and  ac- 
companied by  his  wife,  at  whose  side  the  head  clerk  of 
the  lawyer's  office,  a  little  hunchback  named  Jean  But- 
scha,  trotted  along  like  a  page.  When  these  four  per- 
sonages (two  of  whom  came  the  same  way  every 
evening)  reached  the  elbow  of  the  road  where  it  turns 
back  upon  itself  like  those  called  in  Italy  cornice,  the 
notary  looked  about  to  see  if  any  one  could  overhear 
him  either  from  the  terrace  above  or  the  path  beneath, 
and  when  he  spoke  he  lowered  his  voice  as  a  further 
precaution. 

"  Exupere,"  he  said  to  his  son,  "you  must  try  to 
carry  out  intelligently  a  little  manoeuvre  which  I  shall 
explain  to  you,  but  you  are  not  to  ask  the  meaning  of 
it ;  and  if  you  guess  the  meaning  I  command  you  to 
toss  it  into  that  Styx  which  every  law}rer  and  every 
man  who  expects  to  have  a  hand  in  the  government  of 
his  country  is  bound  to  keep  within  him  for  the  secrets 

1 


2  Modeste   Mignon. 

of  others.  After  you  have  paid  your  respects  and 
compliments  to  Madame  and  Mademoiselle  Mignon, 
to  Monsieur  and  Madame  Dumay,  and  to  Monsieur 
Gobenheim  if  he  is  at  the  Chalet,  and  as  soon  as  quiet 
is  restored,  Monsieur  Dumay  will  take  you  aside ;  you 
are  then  to  look  attentively  at  Mademoiselle  Modeste 
(yes,  I  am  willing  to  allow  it)  during  the  whole  time 
he  is  speaking  to  you.  My  worthy  friend  will  ask  30U 
to  go  out  and  take  a  walk ;  at  the  end  of  an  hour,  that 
is,  about  nine  o'clock,  you  are  to  come  back  in  a  great 
hurry ;  try  to  puff  as  if  you  were  out  of  breath,  and 
whisper  in  Monsieur  Dumay's  ear,  quite  low,  but  so 
that  Mademoiselle  Modeste  is  sure  to  overhear  you, 
these  words :  '  The  young  man  has  come.'  " 

Exupere  was  to  start  the  next  morning  for  Paris  to 
begin  the  study  of  law.  This  impending  departure  had 
induced  Latournelle  to  propose  him  to  his  friend  Dumay 
as  an  accomplice  in  the  important  conspiracy  which 
these  directions  indicate. 

"Is  Mademoiselle  Modeste  suspected  of  having  a 
lover?"  asked  Butscha  in  a  timid  voice  of  Madame 
Latournelle. 

u  Hush,  Butscha,"  she  replied,  taking  her  husband's 
arm. 

Madame  Latournelle,  the  daughter  of  a  clerk  of  the 
supreme  court,  feels  that  her  birth  authorizes  her  to 
claim  issue  from  a  parliamentary  family.  This  con- 
viction explains  why  the  lady,  who  is  somewhat  blotched 
as  to  complexion,  endeavors  to  assume  in  her  own  per- 
son the  majesty  of  a  court  whose  decrees  are  recorded 
in  her  father's  pothooks.  She  takes  snuff,  holds  her- 
self as  stiff  as  a  ramrod,  poses  for  a  person  of  consid- 


Modeste   Mignon.  3 

eration,  and  resembles  nothing  so  much  as  a  mummy 
brought  momentarily  to  life  by  galvanism.  She  tries 
to  give  high-bred  tones  to  her  sharp  voice,  and  suc- 
ceeds no  better  in  doing  that  than  in  hiding  her  general 
lack  of  breeding.  Her  social  usefulness  seems,  how- 
ever, incontestable  when  we  glance  at  the »  flower-be- 
decked cap  she  wears,  at  the  false  front  frizzling  around 
her  forehead,  at  the  gowns  of  her  choice  ;  for  how  could 
shopkeepers  dispose  of  those  products  if  there  were  no 
Madame  Latournelles?  All  these  absurdities  of  the 
worthy  woman,  who  is  truly  pious  and  charitable,  might 
have  passed  unnoticed,  if  nature,  amusing  herself  as 
she  often  does  by  turning  out  these  ludicrous  creations, 
had  not  endowed  her  with  the  height  of  a  drum-major, 
and  thus  held  up  to  view  the  comicalities  of  her  pro- 
vincial nature.  She  has  never  been  out  of  Havre  ;  she 
believes  in  the  infallibility  of  Havre ;  she  buys  those 
clothes  as  well  as  everything  else  in  Havre ;  she  pro- 
claims herself  Norman  to  the  veiy  tips  of  her  fingers ; 
she  venerates  her  father,  and  adores  her  husband. 

Little  Latournelle  was  bold  enough  to  marry  this 
huty  after  she  had  attained  the  anti-matrimonial  age  of 
thirty-three,  and  what  is  more,  he  had  a  son  by  her. 
As  he  could  have  got  the  sixty  thousand  francs  of  her 
dot  in  several  other  ways,  the  public  assigned  his  un- 
common intrepidity  to  a  desire  to  escape  an  invasion 
of  the  Minotaur,  against  whom  his  personal  qualifica- 
tions would  have  insufficiently  protected  him  had  he 
rashly  dared  his  fate  by  bringing  home  a  young  and 
pretty  wife.  The  fact  was,  however,  that  the  notary 
recognized  the  really  fine  qualities  of  Mademoiselle 
Agnes  (she  was  called  Agnes)  and  reflected  to  himself 


4  Modeste    Mignon. 

that  a  woman's  beauty  is  soon  past  and  gone  to  a 
husband.  As  to  the  insignificant  youth  on  whom  the 
clerk  of  the  court  bestowed  in  baptism  his  Norman 
name  of  u  Exupere,"  Madame  Latournelle  is  still  so  sur- 
prised at  becoming  his  mother,  at  the  age  of  thirty-five 
3rears  and  seven  months,  that  she  would  still  provide 
him,  if  it  were  necessary,  with  her  breast  and  her  milk, 
—  an  hyperbole  which  alone  can  fully  express  her  im- 
passioned maternity.  u  How  handsome  he  is,  that  son 
of  mine ! "  she  says  to  her  little  friend  Modeste,  as 
they  walk  to  church,  with  the  beautiful  Exupere  in  front 
of  them.  "  He  is  like  you,"  Modeste  Mignon  answers, 
very  much  as  she  might  have  said,  '*  What  horrid 
weather !  "  This  silhouette  of  Madame  Latournelle  is 
quite  important  as  an  accessory,  inasmuch  as  for  three 
}rears  she  has  been  the  chaperone  of  the  }'oung  girl 
against  whom  the  notary  and  his  friend  Dumay  are 
now  plotting  to  set  what  we  have  called,  in  the  "  Physi- 
ologic du  Mariage,"  a  mouse-trap. 

As  for  Latournelle,  imagine  a  worthy  little  fellow  as 
sly  as  the  purest  honor  and  uprightness  would  allow 
him  to  be,  —  a  man  whom  any  stranger  would  take  for 
a  rascal  at  sight  of  his  queer  pt^siognomy,  to  which, 
however,  the  inhabitants  of  Havre  were  well  accus- 
tomed. His  eyesight,  said  to  be  weak,  obliged  the 
worthy  man  to  wear  green  goggles  for  the  protection 
of  his  e3'es,  which  were  constantly  inflamed.  The 
arch  of  each  eyebrow,  defined  by  a  thin  down  of  hair, 
surrounded  the  tortoise-shell  rim  of  the  glasses  and 
made  a  couple  of  circles  as  it  were,  slightly  apart.  If 
you  have  never  observed  on  the  human  face  the  effect 
produced  by  these  circumferences   placed  one  within 


Modeste   Mignon.  5 

the  other,  and  separated  by  a  hollow  space  or  line,  you 
can  hardly  imagine  how  perplexing  such  a  face  will  be  to 
you,  especially  if  pale,  hollow-cheeked,  and  terminating 
in  a  pointed  chin  like  that  of  Mephistopheles,  —  a  type 
which  painters  give  to  cats.  This  double  resemblance 
was  observable  on  the  face  of  Baby  las  Latournelle. 
Above  the  atrocious  green  spectacles  rose  a  bald 
crown,  all  the  more  crafty  in  expression  because  a  wig, 
seemingly  endowed  with  motion,  let  the  white  hairs 
show  on  all  sides  of  it  as  it  meandered  crookedly 
across  the  forehead.  An  observer  taking  note  of  this 
excellent  Norman,  clothed  in  black  and  mounted  on  his 
two  legs  like  a  beetle  on  a  couple  of  pins,  and  know- 
ing him  to  be  one  of  the  most  trustworthy  of  men, 
would  have  sought,  without  finding  it,  for  the  reason 
of  such  physical  misrepresentation. 

Jean  Butscha,  a  natural  son  abandoned  by  his  par- 
ents and  taken  care  of  by  the  clerk  of  the  court  and 
his  daughter,  and  now,  through  sheer  hard  work,  head- 
clerk  to  the  notar}r,  fed  and  lodged  h\  his  master,  who 
gave  him  a  salary  of  nine  hundred  francs,  almost  a 
dwarf,  and  with  no  semblance  of  youth,  —  Jean  But- 
scha made  Modeste  his  idol,  and  would  willingly  have 
given  his  life  for  hers.  The  poor  fellow,  whose  eyes 
were  hollowed  between  their  heavy  lids  like  the  touch- 
holes  of  a  cannon,  whose  head  overweighted  his  body, 
with  its  shock  of  crisp  hair,  and  whose  face  was  pock- 
marked, had  lived  under  pitying  eyes  from  the  time 
he  was  seven  years  of  age.  Is  not  that  enough  to 
explain  his  whole  being?  Silent,  self-contained,  pious, 
exemplary  in  conduct,  he  went  his  way  over  that  vast 
tract  of  country  named  on  the  map  of  the  heart  Love- 


6  Modeste   Mignon. 

without-Hope,  the  sublime  and  arid  steppes  of  Desire. 
Modeste  had  christened  this  grotesque  little  being  her 
"  Black  Dwarf."  The  nickname  sent  him  to  the  pages 
of  Walter  Scott's  novel,  and  he  one  day  said  to 
Modeste  :  "  Will  }Tou  accept  a  rose  against  the  evil  da\T 
from  3Tour  mysterious  dwarf?  "  Modeste  instantly  sent 
the  soul  of  her  adorer  to  its  humble  mud-cabin  with  a 
terrible  glance,  such  as  young  girls  bestow  on  the  men 
who  cannot  please  them.  Butscha's  conception  of  him- 
self was  lowly,  and,  like  the  wife  of  his  master,  he 
had  never  been  out  of  Havre. 

Perhaps  it  will  be  well,  for  the  sake  of  those  who 
have  never  seen  that  city,  to  say  a  few  words  as  to  the 
present  destination  of  the  Latournelle  familjT,  —  the 
head  clerk  being  included  in  the  latter  term.  Ingou- 
ville  is  to  Havre  what  Montmartre  is  to  Paris,  —  a  high 
hill  at  the  foot  of  which  the  city  lies ;  with  this  differ- 
ence, that  the  hill  and  the  city  are  surrounded  by  the 
sea  and  the  Seine,  that  Havre  is  helplessly  circum- 
scribed by  enclosing  fortifications,  and,  in  short,  that 
the  mouth  of  the  river,  the  harbor,  and  the  clocks 
present  a  very  different  aspect  from  the  fifty  thousand 
houses  of  Paris.  At  the  foot  of  Montmartre  an  ocean 
of  slate  roofs  lies  in  motionless  blue  billows  ;  at  Ingou- 
ville  the  sea  is  like  the  same  roofs  stirred  by  the  wind. 
This  eminence,  or  line  of  hills,  which  coasts  the  Seine 
from  Rouen  to  the  seashore,  leaving  a  margin  of  valley 
land  more  or  less  narrow  between  itself  and  the  river, 
and  containing  in  its  cities,  its  ravines,  its  vales,  its 
meadows,  veritable  treasures  of  the  picturesque,  be- 
came of  enormous  value  in  and  about  Ingouville  after 
the  }Tear  1816,  the  period  at  which  the  prosperity  of 


Modeste   Mignon.  7 

Havre  began.  This  township  has  become  since  that 
time  the  Auteuil,  the  Ville-d'Avray,  the  Montmorency, 
in  short,  the  suburban  residence  of  the  merchants  of 
Havre.  Here  they  build  their  houses  on  terraces  around 
its  amphitheatre  of  hills,  and  breathe  the  sea  air  laden 
with  the  fragrance  of  their  splendid  gardens.  Here 
these  bold  speculators  cast  off  the  burden  of  their 
counting-rooms  and  the  atmosphere  of  their  city  houses, 
which  are  built  closely  together  without  open  spaces, 
often  without  court-yards,  —  a  vice  of  construction 
which  the  increasing  population  of  Havre,  the  inflexi- 
ble line  of  the  fortifications,  and  the  enlargement  of  the 
docks  has  forced  upon  them.  The  result  is,  weariness 
of  heart  in  Havre,  cheerfulness  and  joy  at  Ingouville. 
The  law  of  social  development  has  forced  up  the  suburb 
of  Graville  like  a  mushroom.  It  is  to-day  more  exten- 
sive than  Havre  itself,  which  lies  at  the  foot  of  its  slopes 
like  a  serpent. 

At  the  crest  of  the  hill  Ingouville  has  but  one  street, 
and  (as  in  all  such  situations)  the  houses  which  over- 
look the  river  have  an  immense  advantage  over  those 
on  the  other  side  of  the  road,  whose  view  they  ob- 
struct, and  which  present  the  effect  of  standing  on  tip- 
toe to  look  over  the  opposing  roofs.  However,  there 
exist  here,  as  elsewhere,  certain  servitudes.  Some 
houses  standing  at  the  summit  have  a  finer  position 
or  possess  legal  rights  of  view  which  compel  their 
opposite  neighbors  to  keep  their  buildings  down  to  a 
required  height.  Moreover,  the  openings  cut  in  the 
capricious  rock  by  roads  which  follow  its  declensions 
and  make  the  amphitheatre  habitable,  give  vistas 
through  which  some   estates  can  see  the  city,  or  the 


8  Modeste   Mignon. 

river,  or  the  sea.  Instead  of  rising  to  an  actual  peak, 
the  hill  ends  abruptly  in  a  cliff.  At  the  end  of  the  street 
which  follows  the  line  of  the  summit,  ravines  appear 
in  which  a  few  villages  are  clustered  (Sainte-Adresse 
and  two  or  three  other  Saint-somethings)  together  with 
several  creeks  which  murmur  and  flow  with  the  tides 
of  the  sea.  These  half-deserted  slopes  of  Ingouville 
form  a  striking  contrast  to  the  terraces  of  fine  villas 
which  overlook  the  valley  of  the  Seine.  Is  the  wind 
on  this  side  too  strong  for  vegetation?  Do  the  mer- 
chants shrink  from  the  cost  of  terracing  it?  However 
this  may  be,  the  traveller  approaching  Havre  on  a 
steamer  is  surprised  to  find  a  barren  coast  and  tangled 
gorges  to  the  west  of  Ingouville,  like  a  beggar  in  rags 
beside  a  perfumed  and  sumptuously  apparelled  rich 
man. 

In  1829  one  of  the  last  houses  looking  toward  the 
sea,  and  which  in  all  probability  stands  about  the 
centre  of  the  Ingouville  of  to-day,  was  called,  and  per- 
haps is  still  called,  "  the  Chalet."  Originally  it  was  a 
porter's  lodge  with  a  trim  little  garden  in  front  of  it. 
The  owner  of  the  villa  to  which  it  belonged  —  a  man- 
sion with  park,  gardens,  aviaries,  hot4iouses,  and 
lawns  —  took  a  fancy  to  put  the  little  dwelling  more  in 
keeping  with  the  splendor  of  his  own  abode,  and  he 
reconstructed  it  on  the  model  of  an  ornamental  cottage. 
He  divided  this  cottage  from  his  own  lawn,  which  was 
bordered  and  set  with  flower-beds  and  formed  the  terrace 
of  his  villa,  by  a  low  wall  along  which  he  planted  a  con- 
cealing hedge.  Behind  the  cottage  (called,  in  spite  of 
all  his  efforts  to  prevent  it,  the  Chalet)  were  the  or- 
chards and  kitchen  gardens  of  the  villa.     The  Chalet, 


Modeste   Mignon.  9 

without  cows  or  dairy,  is  separated  from  the  roadway 
by  a  wooden  fence  whose  palings  are  hidden  under  a 
luxuriant  hedge.  On  the  other  side  of  the  road  the 
opposite  house,  subject  to  a  legal  privilege,  has  a  simi- 
lar hedge  and  paling,  so  as  to  leave  an  unobstructed 
view  of  Havre  to  the  Chalet. 

This  little  dwelling  was  the  torment  of  the  present 
proprietor  of  the  villa,  Monsieur  Vilquin ;  and  here  is 
the  why  and  the  wherefore.  The  original  creator  of 
the  villa,  whose  sumptuous  details  cry  aloud,  "  Behold 
our  millions  ! "  extended  his  park  far  into  the  country 
for  the  purpose,  as  he  averred,  of  getting  his  garden- 
ers out  of  his  pockets ;  and  so,  when  the  Chalet  was 
finished,  none  but  a  friend  could  be  allowed  to  inhabit 
it.  Monsieur  Mignon,  the  next  owner  of  the  property, 
was  very  much  attached  to  his  cashier,  Dumay,  and  the 
following  history  will  prove  that  the  attachment  was 
mutual ;  to  him  therefore  he  offered  the  little  dwelling. 
Dumay,  a  stickler  for  legal  methods,  insisted  on  signing 
a  lease  for  three  hundred  francs  for  twelve  years,  and 
Monsieur  Mignon  willingly  agreed,  remarking,  — 

.  "  M3'  dear  Dumay,  remember,  you  have  now  bound 
yourself  to  live  with  me  for  twelve  years." 

In  consequence  of  certain  events  which  will  presently 
be  related,  the  estates  of  Monsieur  Mignon,  formerly 
the  richest  merchant  in  Havre,  were  sold  to  Vilquin, 
one  of  his  business  competitors.  In  his  joy  at  getting 
possession  of  the  celebrated  villa  Mignon,  the  latter 
forgot  to  demand  the  cancelling  of  the  lease.  Dumay, 
anxious  not  to  hinder  the  sale,  would  have  signed  any- 
thing Vilquin  required,  but  the  sale  once  made,  he  held 
to  his  lease  like  a  vengeance.     And  there  he  remained, 


10  Mode  st e   Mignon. 

in  Vilquin's  pocket  as  it  were  ;  at  the  heart  of  Vilquin's 
family  life,  observing  Vilquin,  irritating  Vilquin,  —  in 
short,  the  gadfly  of  all  the  Vilquins.  Every  morning, 
when  he  looked  out  of  his  window,  Vilquin  felt  a  violent 
shock  of  annoyance  as  his  eye  lighted  on  the  little  gem 
of  a  building,  the  Chalet,  which  had  cost  sixty  thousand 
francs  and  sparkled  like  a  ruby  in  the  sun.  That  com- 
parison is  very  nearly  exact.  The  architect  has  con- 
structed the  cottage  of  brilliant  red  brick  pointed  with 
white.  The  window-frames  are  painted  of  a  lively 
green,  the  woodwork  is  brown  verging  on  yellow.  The 
roof  overhangs  by  several  feet.  A  pretty  gallery,  with 
open- worked  balustrade,  surmounts  the  lower  floor  and 
projects  at  the  centre  of  the  facade  into  a  veranda  with 
glass  sides.  The  ground-floor  has  a  charming  salon 
and  a  dining-room,  separated  from  each  other  by  the 
landing  of  a  staircase  built  of  wood,  designed  and  dec- 
orated with  elegant  simplichty.  The  kitchen  is  behind 
the  dining-room,  and  the  corresponding  room  back  of 
the  salon,  formerly  a  study,  is  now  the  bedroom  of 
Monsieur  and  Madame  Dumay.  On  the  upper  floor 
the  architect  has  managed  to  get  two  large  bedrooms, 
each  with  a  dressing-room,  to  which  the  veranda  serves 
as  a  salon  ;  and  above  this  floor,  under  the  eaves,  which 
are  tipped  together  like  a  couple  of  cards,  are  two  ser- 
vants' rooms  with  mansard  roofs,  each  lighted  by  a 
circular  window  and  tolerabty  spacious. 

Vilquin  had  been  petty  enough  to  build  a  high  wall 
on  the  side  toward  the  orchard  and  kitchen  garden ; 
and  in  consequence  of  this  piece  of  spite,  the  few  square 
feet  which  the  lease  secured  to  the  Chalet  resembled  a 
Parisian  garden.    The  out-buildings,  painted  in  keeping 


Modeste   Mignon.  11 

with  the  cottage,  stood  with  their  backs  to  the  wall  of 
the  adjoining  property. 

The  interior  of  this  charming  dwelling  harmonized 
with  its  exterior.  The  salon,  floored  entirely  with  iron- 
wood,  was  painted  in  a  style  that  suggested  the  beauties 
of  Chinese  lacquer.  On  black  panels  edged  with  gold, 
birds  of  every  color,  foliage  of  impossible  greens,  and 
fantastic  oriental  designs  glowed  and  shimmered.  The 
dining-room  was  entirely  sheathed  in  Northern  woods 
carved  and  cut  in  open-work  like  the  beautiful  Russian 
chalets.  The  little  antechamber  formed  by  the  landing 
and  the  well  of  the  staircase  was  painted  in  old  oak  to 
represent  Gothic  ornament.  The  bedrooms,  hung  with 
chintz,  were  charming  in  their  costly  simplicity.  The 
study,  where  the  cashier  and  his  wife  now  slept,  was 
panelled  from  top  to  bottom,  on  the  walls  and  ceiling, 
like  the  cabin  of  a  steamboat.  These  luxuries  of  his 
predecessor  excited  Vilquin's  wrath.  He  would  fain 
have  lodged  his  daughter  and  her  husband  in  the  cot- 
tage. This  desire,  well  known  to  Dumay,  will  pres- 
ently serve  to  illustrate  the  Breton  obstinac}'  of  the 
latter. 

The  entrance  to  the  Chalet  is  by  a  little  trellised  iron 
door,  the  uprights  of  which,  ending  in  lance-heads,  show 
for  a  few  inches  above  the  fence  and  its  hedge.  The 
little  garden,  about  as  wide  as  the  more  pretentious 
lawn,  was  just  now  filled  with  flowers,  roses  and  dahlias 
of  the  choicest  kind,  and  many  rare  products  of  the 
hot-houses,  for  (another  Vilquinard  grievance)  the  ele- 
gant little  hot-house,  a  very  whim  of  a  hot-house,  a 
hot-house  representing  dignity  and  style,  belonged  to 
the  Chalet,  and  separated,  or  if  you  prefer,  united  it  to 


12  Modeste   Mignon. 

the  villa  Vilquin.  Dumay  consoled  himself  for  the  toils 
of  business  in  taking  care  of  this  hot-house,  whose  ex- 
otic treasures  were  one  of  Modeste's  jo\'s.  The  billiard- 
room  of  the  villa  Vilquin,  a  species  of  gallerj-,  formerly 
communicated  through  an  immense  aviary  with  this 
hot-house.  But  after  the  building  of  the  wall  which 
deprived  him  of  a  view  into  the  orchards,  Dumay 
bricked  up  the  door  of  communication.  4i  Wall  for 
wall !  "  he  said. 

In  1827  Vilquin  offered  Dumay  a  salary  of  six  thou- 
sand francs,  and  ten  thousand  more  as  indemnity,  if  he 
would  give  up  the  lease.  The  cashier  refused  ;  though 
he  had  but  three  thousand  from  Gobenheim,  a  former 
clerk  of  his  master.  Dumay  was  a  Breton  trans- 
planted by  fate  into  Normandy.  Imagine  therefore  the 
hatred  conceived  for  the  tenants  of  the  Chalet  by  the 
Norman  Vilquin,  a  man  worth  three  millions !  What 
criminal  leze-million  on  the  part  of  a  cashier,  to  hold  up 
to  the  eyes  of  such  a  man  the  impotence  of  his  wealth ! 
Vilquin,  whose  desperation  in  the  matter  made  him  the 
talk  of  Havre,  had  just  proposed  to  give  Dumay  a  pretty 
house  of  his  own,  and  had  again  been  refused.  Havre 
itself  began  to  grow  uneasy  at  the  man's  obstinacy,  and 
a  good  many  persons  explained  it  by  the  phrase,  "  Du- 
may is  a  Breton."  As  for  the  cashier,  he  thought 
Madame  and  Mademoiselle  Mignon  would  be  ill-lodged 
elsewhere.  His  two  idols  now  inhabited  a  temple 
worthy  of  them ;  the  sumptuous  little  cottage  gave 
them  a  home,  where  these  dethroned  royalties  could 
keep  the  semblance  of  majesty  about  them,  —  a  species 
of  dignity  usually  denied  to  those  who  have  seen  better 
days. 


Modeste   Mignon.  13 

Perhaps  as  the  story  goes  on,  the  reader  will  not  re- 
gret having  learned  in  advance  a  few  particulars  as  to 
the  home  and  the  habitual  companions  of  Modeste 
Mignon,  for,  at  her  age,  people  and  things  have  as 
much  influence  upon  the  future  life  as  a  person's  own 
character,  —  indeed,  character  often  receives 'ineffaceable 
impressions  from  its  surroundings. 


14  Modeste   Mignon. 


CHAPTER   II. 

A   PORTRAIT   FROM   LIFE. 

From  the  manner  with  which  the  Latournelles  en- 
tered the  Chalet  a  stranger  would  readily  have  guessed 
that  they  came  there  every  evening. 

"  Ah,  you  are  here  already,"  said  the  notary,  per- 
ceiving the  young  banker  Gobenheim,  a  connection  of 
Gobenheim-Keller,  the  head  of  the  great  banking-house 
in  Paris. 

This  3'oung  man  with  a  livid  face  — ■  a  blonde  of  the 
type  with  black  eyes,  whose  immovable  glance  has  an 
indescribable  fascination,  sober  in  speech  as  in  con- 
duct, dressed  in  black,  lean  as  a  consumptive,  but 
nevertheless  vigorously  framed  —  visited  the  family 
of  his  former  master  and  the  house  of  his  cashier  less 
from  affection  than  from  self-interest.  Here  they  played 
whist  at  two  sous  a  point ;  a  dress-coat  was  not  re- 
quired ;  he  accepted  no  refreshment  except  eau  sucree, 
and  consequently  had  no  civilities  to  return.  This  ap- 
parent devotion  to  the  Mignon  family  allowed  it  to  be 
supposed  that  Gobenheim  had  a  heart ;  it  also  released 
him  from  the  necessity  of  going  into  the  society  of 
Havre  and  incurring  useless  expenses,  thus  upsetting 
the  orderly  economy  of  his  domestic  life.  This  dis- 
ciple of  the  golden  calf  went  to  bed  at  half-past  ten 
o'clock  and  got  up  at  five  in  the  morning.     Moreover, 


Modeste   Mignon,  15 

being  perfectly  sure  of  Latournelle's  and  Butscha's  dis- 
cretion, he  could  talk  over  difficult  business  matters, 
obtain  the  advice  of  the  notary  gratis,  and  get  an  inkling 
of  the  real  truth  of  the  gossip  of  the  street.  This  stolid 
gold-glutton  (the  epithet  is  Butscha's)  belonged  by  na- 
ture to  the  class  of  substances  which  chemistry  terms 
absorbents.  Ever  since  the  catastrophe  of  the  house  of 
Mignon,  where  the  Kellers  had  placed  him  to  learn  the 
principles  of  maritime  commerce,  no  one  at  the  Chalet 
had  ever  asked  him  to  do  the  smallest  thing,  no  mat- 
ter what ;  his  reply  was  too  well  known.  The  young 
fellow  looked  at  Modeste  precisely  as  he  would  have 
looked  at  a  cheap  lithograph. 

"He's  one  of  the  pistons  of  the  big  engine  called 
i  Commerce/ "  said  poor  Butscha,  whose  clever  mind 
made  itself  felt  occasionally  by  such  little  sayings 
timidly  jerked  out. 

The  four  Latournelles  bowed  with  the  most  respect- 
ful deference  to  an  old  lady  dressed  in  black  velvet, 
who  did  not  rise  from  the  armchair  in  which  she  was 
seated,  for  the  reason  that  both  eyes  were  covered  with 
the  yellow  film  produced  by  cataract.  Madame  Mignon 
may  be  sketched  in  one  sentence.  Her  august  coun- 
tenance of  the  mother  of  a  family  attracted  instant 
notice  as  that  of  one  whose  irreproachable  life  defies  the 
assaults  of  destiny,  which  nevertheless  makes  her  the 
target  of  its  arrows  and  a  member  of  the  unnumbered 
tribe  of  Niobes.  Her  blonde  wig,  carefully  curled  and 
well  arranged  upon  her  head,  became  the  cold  white 
face  which  resembled  that  of  some  burgomaster's  wife 
painted  by  Hals  or  Mirevelt.  The  extreme  neatness  of 
her  dress,  the  velvet  boots,  the  lace  collar,  the  shawl 


16  Modeste   Mignon. 

evenly  folded  and  put  on,  all  bore  testimony  to  the  so- 
licitous care  which  Modeste  bestowed  upon  her  mother. 

When  silence  was,  as  the  notary  had  predicted,  re- 
stored in  the  pretty  salon,  Modeste,  sitting  beside  her 
mother,  for  whom  she  was  embroidering  a  kerchief, 
became  for  an  instant  the  centre  of  observation.  This 
curiosity,  barely  veiled  by  the  commonplace  salutations 
and  inquiries  of  the  visitors,  would  have  revealed  even 
to  an  indifferent  person  the  existence  of  the  domestic 
plot  to  which  Modeste  was  expected  to  fall  a  victim ; 
but  Gobenheim,  more  than  indifferent,  noticed  nothing, 
and  proceeded  to  light  the  candles  on  the  card-table. 
The  behavior  of  Dumay  made  the  whole  scene  terrify- 
ing to  Butscha,  to  the  Latournelles,  and  above  all  to 
Madame  Dumay,  who  knew  her  husband  to  be  capable 
of  firing  a  pistol  at  Modeste's  lover  as  coolly  as  though 
he  were  a  mad  dog. 

After  dinner  that  day  the  cashier  had  gone  to  walk 
followed  by  two  magnificent  Pyrenees  hounds,  whom  he 
suspected  of  betraying  him,  and  therefore  left  in  charge 
of  a  farmer,  a  former  tenant  of  Monsieur  Mignon.  On 
his  return,  just  before  the  arrival  of  the  Latournelles, 
he  had  taken  his  pistols  from  his  bed's  head  and  placed 
them  on  the  chimney-piece,  concealing  this  action  from 
Modeste.  The  young  girl  took  no  notice  whatever  of 
these  preparations,  singular  as  they  were. 

Though  short,  thick-set,  pockmarked,  and  speaking 
always  in  a  low  voice  as  if  listening  to  himself,  this 
Breton,  a  former  lieutenant  in  the  Guard,  showed  the 
evidence  of  such  resolution,  such  sang-froid  on  his  face 
that  throughout  life,  even  in  the  army,  no  one  had  ever 
ventured  to  trifle  with  him.     His  little  eyes,  of  a  calm 


Modeste   Mignon.  17 

blue,  were  like  bits  of  steel.  His  ways,  the  look  on  his 
face,  his  speech,  his  carriage,  were  all  in  keeping  with 
the  short  name  of  Dumay.  His  physical  strength,  well- 
known  to  every  one,  put  him  above  all  danger  of  at- 
tack. He  was  able  to  kill  a  man  with  a  blow  of  his 
fist,  and  had  performed  that  feat  at  Bautzen',  where  he 
found  himself,  unarmed,  face  to  face  with  a  Saxon  at 
the  rear  of  his  company.  At  the  present  moment  the 
usually  firm  yet  gentle  expression  of  the  man's  face 
had  risen  to  a  sort  of  tragic  sublimity ;  his  lips  were 
pale  as  the  rest  of  his  face,  indicating  a  tumult  within 
him  mastered  by  his  Breton  will ;  a  slight  sweat,  which 
every  one  noticed  and  guessed  to  be  cold,  moistened 
his  brow.  The  notary  knew  but  too  well  that  these 
signs  might  result  in  a  drama  before  the  criminal 
courts.  In  fact  the  cashier  was  pla}ing  a  part  in  con- 
nection with  Modeste  Mignon,  which  involved  to  his 
mind  sentiments  of  honor  and  loyalty  of  far  greater  im- 
portance than  mere  social  laws ;  and  his  present  con- 
duct proceeded  from  one  of  those  compacts  which,  in 
case  disaster  came  of  it,  could  be  judged  only  in  a 
higher  court  than  one  of  earth.  The  majority  of  dramas 
lie  really  in  the  ideas  which  we  make  to  ourselves  about 
things.  Events  which  seem  to  us  dramatic  are  nothing 
more  than  subjects  which  our  souls  convert  into  tragedy 
or  comedy  according  to  the  bent  of  our  characters. 

Madame  Latournelle  and  Madame  Dumay,  who  were 
appointed  to  watch  Modeste,  had  a  certain  assumed  stiff- 
ness of  demeanor  and  a  quiver  in  their  voices,  which  the 
suspected  party  did  not  notice,  so  absorbed  was  she  in 
her  embroidery.  Modeste  laid  each  thread  of  cotton 
with  a   precision  that  would  have  made  an  ordinary 


18  Mode  st e   Mignon. 

workwoman  desperate.  Her  face  expressed  the  pleas- 
ure she  took  in  the  smooth  petals  of  the  flower  she  was 
working.  The  dwarf,  seated  between  his  mistress  and 
Gobenheim,  restrained  his  emotion,  trying  to  find  means 
to  approach  Modeste  and  whisper  a  word  of  warning 
in  her  ear. 

By  taking  a  position  in  front  of  Madame  Mignon, 
Madame  Latournelle,  with  the  diabolical  intelligence  of 
conscientious  duty,  had  isolated  Modeste,  Madame 
Mignon,  whose  blindness  always  made  her  silent,  was 
even  paler  than  usual,  showing  plainly  that  she  was 
aware  of  the  test  to  which  her  daughter  was  about  to 
be  subjected.  Perhaps  at  the  last  moment  she  revolted 
from  the  stratagem,  necessar}r  as  it  might  seem  to  her. 
Hence  her  silence  ;  she  was  weeping  inwardly.  Exupere, 
the  spring  of  the  trap,  was  wholly  ignorant  of  the  piece 
in  which  he  was  to  play  a  part.  Gobenheim,  by  reason 
of  his  character,  remained  in  a  state  of  indifference 
equal  to  that  displayed  by  Modeste.  To  a  spectator 
who  understood  the  situation,  this  contrast  between  the 
ignorance  of  some  and  the  palpitating  interest  of  others 
would  have  seemed  quite  poetic.  Nowadays  romance- 
writers  arrange  such  effects  ;  and  it  is  quite  within  their 
province  to  do  so,  for  nature  in  all  ages  takes  the 
liberty  to  be  stronger  than  they.  In  this  instance,  as 
you  will  see,  nature,  social  nature,  which  is  a  second 
nature  within  nature,  amused  herself  by  making  truth 
more  interesting  than  fiction ;  just  as  mountain  tor- 
rents describe  curves  which  are  be}Tond  the  skill  of 
painters  to  convey,  and  accomplish  giant  deeds  in 
displacing  or  smoothing  stones  which  are  the  wonder 
of  architects  and  sculptors. 


Modeste  Mignon.  19 

It  was  eight  o'clock.  At  that  season  twilight  was 
still  shedding  its  last  gleams ;  there  was  not  a  cloud 
in  the  sky ;  the  balmy  air  caressed  the  earth,  the  flow- 
ers gave  forth  their  fragrance,  the  steps  of  pedestrians 
turning  homeward  sounded  along  the  gravelly  road,  the 
sea  shone  like  a  mirror,  and  there  was  so  little  wind  that 
the  wax  candles  upon  the  card-tables  sent  up  a  steady 
flame,  although  the  windows  were  wide  open.  This 
salon,  this  evening,  this  dwelling  —  what  a  frame  for 
the  portrait  of  the  young  girl  whom  these  persons  were 
now  stuelving  with  the  profound  attention  of  a  painter 
in  presence  of  the  Margharita  Doni,  one  of  the  glories 
rf  the  Pitti  palace.  Modeste,  —  blossom  enclosed, 
like  that  of  Catullus,  —  was  she  worth  all  these  pre- 
cautions ? 

You  have  seen  the  cage ;  behold  the  bird !  Just 
twenty  years  of  age,  slender  and  delicate  as  the  sirens 
which  English  designers  invent  for  their  "  Books  of 
Beauty,"  Modeste  was,  like  her  mother  before  her, 
the  captivating  embodiment  of  a  grace  too  little  un- 
derstood in  France,  where  we  choose  to  call  it  sentimen- 
tality, but  which  among  German  women  is  the  poetry 
of  the  heart  coming  to  the  surface  of  the  being  and 
spending  itself,  —  in  affectations  if  the  owner  is  silly,  in 
divine  charms  of  manner  if  she  is  spirituelle  and  intelli- 
gent. Remarkable  for  her  pale  golden  hair,  Modeste 
belonged  to  the  type  of  woman  called,  perhaps  in  mem- 
ory of  Eve,  the  celestial  blonde ;  whose  satiny  skin  is 
like  a  silk  paper  applied  to  the  flesh,  shuddering  at  the 
winter  of  a  cold  look,  expanding  in  the  sunshine  of  a 
loving  glance,  —  teaching  the  hand  to  be  jealous  of  the 
eye.     Beneath  her  hair,  which  was  soft  and  feathery 


20  Modeste   Mignon. 

and  worn  in  many  curls,  the  brow,  which  might  have 
been  traced  by  a  compass  so  pure  was  its  modelling, 
shone  forth  discreet,  calm  to  placidit}T,  and  yet  luminous 
with  thought :  when  and  where  could  another  be  found 
so  transparently  clear  or  more  exquisitely  smooth  ?  It 
seemed,  like  a  pearl,  to  have  its  orient.  The  eyes,  of  a 
blue  verging  on  gray  and  limpid  as  the  eyes  of  a  child, 
had  all  the  mischief,  all  the  innocence  of  childhood,  and 
they  harmonized  well  with  the  arch  of  the  eyebrows, 
faintly  indicated  by  lines  like  those  made  with  a  brush 
on  Chinese  faces.  This  candor  of  the  soul  was  still 
further  evidenced  around  the  eyes,  in  their  corners, 
and  about  the  temples,  by  pearly  tints  threaded  with 
blue,  the  special  privilege  of  these  delicate  complexions. 
The  face,  whose  oval  Raphael  so  often  gave  to  his 
Madonnas,  was  remarkable  for  the  sober  and  virginal 
tone  of  the  cheeks,  soft  as  a  Bengal  rose,  upon  which 
the  long  lashes  of  the  diaphanous  ej'elids  cast  shadows 
that  were  mingled  with  light.  The  throat,  bending  as 
she  worked,  too  delicate  perhaps,  and  of  milky  white- 
ness, recalled  those  vanishing  lines  that  Lionardo  loved. 
A  few  little  blemishes  here  and  there,  like  the  patches 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  proved  that  Modeste  was 
indeed  a  child  of  earth,  and  not  a  creation  dreamed  of 
in  Italy  by  the  angelic  school.  Her  lips,  delicate  yet 
full,  were  slightly  mocking  and  somewhat  sensuous; 
the  waist,  which  was  supple  and  yet  not  fragile,  had 
no  terrors  for  maternity,  like  those  of  girls  who  seek 
beauty  by  the  fatal  pressure  of  a  corset.  Steel  and 
dimity  and  lacings  defined  but  did  not  create  the  ser- 
pentine lines  of  the  elegant  figure,  graceful  as  that  of 
a  young  poplar  swaying  in  fhe  wind. 


Modeste  Mignon.  21 

A  pearl-gray  dress  with  crimson  trimmings,  made 
with  a  long  waist,  modestty  outlined  the  bust  and  cov- 
ered the  shoulders,  still  rather  thin,  with  a  chemisette 
which  left  nothing  to  view  but  the  first  curves  of  the 
throat  where  it  joined  the  shoulders.  Froni  the  aspect 
of  the  young  girl's  face,  at  once  ethereal  and  intelligent, 
where  the  delicacy  of  a  Greek  nose  with  its  rosy  nos- 
trils and  firm  modelling  marked  something  positive  and 
defined ;  where  the  poetry  enthroned  upon  an  almost 
mystic  brow  seemed  belied  at  times  by  the  pleasure- 
loving  expression  of  the  mouth ;  where  candor  claimed 
the  depths  profound  and  varied  of  the  eye,  and  disputed 
them  with  a  spirit  of  irony  that  was  trained  and  edu- 
cated,—  from  all  these  signs  an  observer  would  have 
felt  that  this  young  girl,  with  the  keen,  alert  ear  that 
waked  at  every  sound,  with  a  nostril  open  to  catch  the 
fragrance  of  the  celestial  flower  of  the  Ideal,  was  des- 
tined to  be  the  battle-ground  of  a  struggle  between  the 
poesies  of  the  dawn  and  the  labors  of  the  day  ;  between 
fancy  and  reality,  the  spirit  and  the  life.  Modeste  was 
a  pure  young  girl,  inquisitive  after  knowledge,  under- 
standing her  destiny,  and  filled  with  chastity,  —  the 
Virgin  of  Spain  rather  than  the  Madonna  of  Raphael. 

She  raised  her  head  when  she  heard  Dumay  say  to 
Exupere,  "  Come  here,  young  man."  Seeing  them 
together  in  the  corner  of  the  salon  she  supposed  they 
were  talking  of  some  commission  in  Paris.  Then  she 
looked  at  the  friends  who  surrounded  her,  as  if  surprised 
by  their  silence,  and  exclaimed  in  her  natural  manner, 
"  Why  are  you  not  playing  ?"  —  with  a  glance  at  the 
green  table  which  the  imposing  Madame  Latournelle 
called  the  "  altar." 


22  Modeste   Mignon. 

"Yes,  let  us  play,"  said  Dumay,  having  sent  off 
Exupere. 

"  Sit  there,  Butscha,"  said  Madame  Latournelle,  sep- 
arating the  head-clerk  from  the  group  around  Madame 
Mignon  and  her  daughter  by  the  whole  width  of  the 
table. 

"  And  you,  come  over  here,"  said  Dumay  to  his  wife, 
making  her  sit  close  by  him. 

Madame  Dumay,  a  little  American  about  thirty-six 
years  of  age,  wiped  her  eyes  furtively  ;  she  adored  Mo- 
deste, and  feared  a  catastrophe. 

"  You  are  not  very  lively  this  evening,"  remarked 
Modeste. 

"  We  are  playing,"  said  Gobenheim,  sorting  his 
cards. 

No  matter  how  interesting  this  situation  may  appear, 
it  can  be  made  still  more  so  by  explaining  Dumay's 
position  toward  Modeste.  If  the  brevity  of  this  ex- 
planation makes  it  seem  rather  dry,  the  reader  must 
pardon  its  dryness  in  view  of  our  desire  to  get  through 
with  these  preliminaries  as  speedily  as  possible,  and 
the  necessity  of  relating  the  main  circumstances  which 
govern  all  dramas. 


Modeste   Mignon.  23 


CHAPTER   in. 

PRELIMINARIES. 

Jean  Francois  Bernard  Dumay,  born  at  Vannes, 
started  as  a  soldier  for  the  army  of  Italy  in  1799.  His 
father,  president  of  the  revolutionary  tribunal  of  that 
town,  had  displayed  so  much  energy  in  his  office  that 
the  place  became  too  hot  to  hold  the  son  when  the  par- 
ent, a  pettifogging  lawyer,  perished  on  the  scaffold  after 
the  ninth  Thermidor.  On  the  death  of  his  mother,  who 
died  of  the  grief  this  catastrophe  occasioned,  Jean  sold 
all  that  he  possessed  and  rushed  to  Italy  at  the  age  of 
twenty-two,  at  the  very  moment  when  our  armies  were 
beginning  to  yield.  On  the  way  he  met  a  young  man  in 
the  department  of  Var,  who  for  reasons  analogous  to  his 
own  was  in  search  of  glory,  believing  a  battle-field  less 
perilous  than  his  own  Provence.  Charles  Mignon,  the 
last  scion  of  an  ancient  family,  which  gave  its  name  to 
a  street  in  Paris  and  to  a  mansion  built  by  Cardinal 
Mignon,  had  a  shrewd  and  calculating  father,  whose 
one  idea  was  to  save  his  feudal  estate  of  La  Bastie  in 
the  Comtat  from  the  claws  of  the  Revolution.  Like  all 
timid  folk  of  that  day,  the  Comte  de  La  Bastie,  now 
citizen  Mignon,  found  it  more  wholesome  to  cut  oft 
other  peopled  heads  than  to  let  his  own  be  cut  off. 
The  sham  terrorist  disappeared  after  the  9th  Thermi- 
dor, and  was  then  inscribed  on  the  list  of  emigres.    The 


24  Modeste   Mignon. 

estate  of  La  Bastie  was  sold  ;  the  towers  and  bastions 
of  the  old  castle  were  pulled  down,  and  citizen  Mignon 
was  soon  after  discovered  at  Orleans  and  put  to  death 
with  his  wife  and  all  his  children  except  Charles,  whom 
he  had  sent  to  find  a  refuge  for  the  family  in  the  Upper 
Alps. 

Horrorstruck  at  the  news,  Charles  waited  for  better 
times  in  a  valley  of  Mont  Genevra ;  and  there  he  re- 
mained till  1799,  subsisting  on  a  few  louis  which  his 
father  had  put  into  his  hand  at  starting.  Finally, 
when  twenty-three  years  of  age,  and  without  other  for- 
tune than  his  fine  presence  and  that  southern  beauty 
which,  when  it  reaches  perfection,  may  be  called  sub- 
lime (of  which  Antinoiis,  the  favorite  of  Adrian,  ie 
the  type),  Charles  resolved  to  wager  his  Provencal 
audacity  —  taking  it,  like  many  another  youth,  for  a  vo- 
cation —  on  the  red  cloth  of  war.  On  his  way  to  the  base 
of  the  army  at  Nice  he  met  the  Breton.  The  pair  be- 
came intimate,  partly  through  the  similarity  of  their 
fortunes,  partly  from  the  contrasts  in  their  characters ; 
they  drank  from  the  same  cup  at  the  wayside  torrents, 
broke  the  same  biscuit,  and  were  both  made  sergeants 
at  the  peace  which  followed  the  battle  of  Marengo. 

When  the  war  recommenced,  Charles  Mignon  was 
promoted  into  the  cavalry  and  lost  sight  of  his  com- 
rade. In  1812  the  last  of  the  Mignon  de  La  Bastie 
was  an  officer  of  the  Legion  of  honor  and  major  of  a 
regiment  of  cavalry.  Taken  prisoner  by  the  Russians 
he  was  sent,  like  so  many  others,  to  Siberia.  He 
made  the  journey  in  compan}7  with  another  prisoner,  a 
poor  lieutenant,  in  whom  he  recognized  his  old  friend 
Jean  Dumay,  brave,  neglected,  undecorated,  unhappy, 


Modeste   Mignon.  25 

like  a  million  of  other  woollen  epaulets,  rank  and  file  — 
that  canvas  of  men  on  which  Napoleon  painted  the 
picture  of  the  Empire.  While  in  Siberia,  the  lieutenant- 
colonel,  to  kill  time,  taught  writing  and  arithmetic  to 
the  Breton,  whose  early  education  had  seemed  a  use- 
less waste  of  time  to  Pere  Seevola.  Charles  found  in 
the  old  comrade  of  his  marching  days  one  of  those  rare 
hearts  into  which  a  man  can  pour  his  griefs  while  telling 
his  joys. 

The  37oung  Provencal  had  met  the  fate  which  attends 
all  handsome  bachelors.  In  1804,  at  Frankfort  on  the 
Main,  he  was  adored  by  Bettina  Wallenrod,  only 
daughter  of  a  banker,  and  he  married  her  with  all  the 
more  enthusiasm  because  she  was  rich  and  a  noted 
beauty,  while  he  was  only  a  lieutenant  with  no  pros- 
pects but  the  extremely  problematical  future  of  a  sol- 
dier of  fortune  of  that  day.  Old  Wallenrod,  a  decayed 
German  baron  (there  is  always  a  baron  in  a  German 
bank)  delighted  to  know  that  the  handsome  lieutenant 
was  the  sole  representative  of  the  Mignon  de  La  Bastie, 
approved  the  love  of  the  blonde  Bettina,  whose  beauty 
an  artist  (at  that  time  there  really  was  one  in  Frankfort) 
had  lately  painted  as  an  ideal  head  of  Germany.  Wallen- 
rod invested  enough  money  in  the  French  funds  to  give 
his  daughter  thirty  thousand  francs  a  year,  and  settled 
it  on  his  anticipated  grandsons,  naming  them  counts  of 
La  Bastie- Wallenrod.  This  dot  made  only  a  small 
hole  in  his  cash-box,  the  value  of  money  being  then 
very  low.  But  the  Empire,  pursuing  a  policy  often 
attempted  by  other  debtors,  rarely  paid  its  dividends ; 
and  Charles  was  rather  alarmed  at  this  investment, 
having  less  faith  than  his  father-in-law  in  the  imperial  : 


26  Modeste   Mignon. 

eagle.  The  phenomenon  of  belief,  or  of  admiration 
which  is  ephemeral  belief,  is  not  so  easily  maintained 
when  in  close  quarters  with  the  idol.  The  mechanic  dis- 
trusts the  machine  which  the  traveller  admires  ;  and  the 
officers  of  the  army  might  be  called  the  stokers  of  the 
Napoleonic  engine,  —  if,  indeed,  they  were  not  its  fuel. 

However,  the  Baron  Wallenrod-Tustall-Bartenstild 
promised  to  come  if  necessary  to  the  help  of  the  house- 
hold. Charles  loved  Bettina  Wallenrod  as  much  as 
she  loved  him,  and  that  is  saying  a  good  deal ;  but 
when  a  Provencal  is  moved  to  enthusiasm  all  his  feel- 
ings and  attachments  are  genuine  and  natural.  And 
how  could  he  fail  to  adore  that  blonde  beauty,  escap- 
ing, as  it  were,  from  the  canvas  of  Diirer,  gifted  with 
an  angelic  nature  and  endowed  with  Frankfort  wealth  ? 
The  pair  had  four  children,  of  whom  only  two  daugh- 
ters survived  at  the  time  when  he  poured  his  griefs 
into  the  Breton's  heart.  Dumay  loved  these  little  ones 
without  having  seen  them,  solely  through  the  sympathy 
so  well  described  by  Charlet,  which  makes  a  soldier  the 
father  of  every  child.  The  eldest,  named  Bettina  Caro- 
line, was  born  in  1805 ;  the  other,  Marie  Modeste,  in 
1808.  The  unfortunate  lieutenant-colonel,  long  with- 
out tidings  of  these  cherished  darlings,  was  sent,  at  the 
peace  of  1814,  across  Russia  and  Prussia  on  foot, 
accompanied  by  the  lieutenant.  No  difference  of 
epaulets  could  count  between  the  two  friends,  who 
reached  Frankfort  just  as  Napoleon  was  disembarking 
at  Cannes. 

Charles  found  his  wife  in  Frankfort,  in  mourning  for 
her  father,  who  had  alwa}*s  idolized  her  and  tried  to 
keep  a  smile  upon  her  lips,  even  by  his  dying  bed.     Old 


Modeste  Mignon.  27 

Wallenrod  was  unable  to  survive  the  disasters  of  the 
Empire.  At  seventy  years  of  age  he  speculated  in 
cottons,  relying  on  the  genius  of  Napoleon  without 
comprehending  that  genius  is  quite  as  often  beyond  as 
at  the  bottom  of  current  events.  The  old  man  had  pur- 
chased nearly  as  many  bales  of  cotton  as  the  Emperor 
had  lost  men  during  his  magnificent  campaign  in 
France.  "  I  tie  in  goddon,"  said  the  father  to  the 
daughter,  a  father  of  the  Goriot  type,  striving  to  quiet 
a  grief  which  distressed  him.  "  I  owe  no  mann  any- 
ding  —  M  and  he  died,  still  trying  to  speak  to  his  daugh- 
ter in  the  language  that  she  loved. 

Thankful  to  have  saved  his  wife  and  daughters  from 
the  general  wreck,  Charles  Mignon  returned  to  Paris, 
where  the  Emperor  made  him  lieutenant-colonel  in  the 
cuirassiers  of  the  Guard  and  commander  of  the  Legion 
of  honor.  The  colonel  dreamed  of  being  count  and 
general  after  the  first  victory.  Alas !  that  hope  was 
quenched  in  the  blood  of  Waterloo.  The  colonel, 
slightly  wounded,  retired  to  the  Loire,  and  left  Tours 
before  the  disbandment  of  the  army. 

In  the  spring  of  1816  Charles  sold  his  wife's  prop- 
erty out  of  the  funds  to  the  amount  of  nearly  four  hun- 
dred thousand  francs,  intending  to  seek  his  fortune  in 
America,  and  abandon  his  own  country  where  persecu- 
tion was  beginning  to  lay  a  heavy  hand  on  the  soldiers 
of  Napoleon.  He  went  to  Havre  accompanied  by  Du- 
may,  whose  life  he  had  saved  at  Waterloo  by  taking 
him  on  the  crupper  of  his  saddle  in  the  hurly-burly  of 
the  retreat.  Dumay  shared  the  opinions  and  the  anxi- 
eties of  his  colonel ;  the  poor  fellow  idolized  the  two 
little  girls  and  followed  Charles  like  a  spaniel.     The 


28  Modeste   Mignon. 

latter,  confident  that  the  habit  of  obedience,  the  disci- 
pline of  subordination,  and  the  honesty  and  affection  of 
the  lieutenant  would  make  him  a  useful  as  well  as  a 
faithful  retainer,  proposed  to  take  him  with  him  in  a 
civil  capacity.  Dumay  was  only  too  happy  to  be 
adopted  into  the  family,  to  which  he  resolved  to  cling 
like  the  mistletoe  to  an  oak. 

While  waiting  for  an  opportunity  to  embark,  at  the 
same  time  making  choice  of  a  ship  and  reflecting  on  the 
chances  offered  by  the  various  ports  for  which  they 
sailed,  the  colonel  heard  much  talk  about  the  brilliant 
future  which  the  peace  seemed  to  promise  to  Havre. 
As  he  listened  to  these  conversations  among  the  mer- 
chants, he  foresaw  the  means  of  fortune,  and  without 
loss  of  time  he  set  about  making  himself  the  owner  of 
landed  property,  a  banker,  and  a  shipping-merchant. 
He  bought  land  and  houses  in  the  town,  and  de- 
spatched a  vessel  to  New  York  freighted  with  silks 
purchased  in  Lyons  at  reduced  prices.  He  sent  Dumay 
on  the  ship  as  his  agent ;  and  when  the  latter  returned, 
after  making  a  double  profit  by  the  sale  of  the  silks  and 
the  purchase  of  cottons  at  a  low  valuation,  he  found 
the  colonel  installed  with  his  family  in  the  handsomest 
house  in  the  rue  Royale,  and  studying  the  principles 
of  banking  with  the  prodigious  activity  and  intelligence 
of  a  native  of  Provence. 

This  double  operation  of  Dumay's  was  worth  a  for- 
tune to  the  house  of  Mignon.  The  colonel  purchased 
the  villa  at  Ingouville  and  rewarded  his  agent  with  the 
gift  of  a  modest  little  house  in  *the  rue  Royale.  The 
poor  toiler  had  brought  back  from  New  York,  together 
with  his  cottons,  a  pretty  little  wife,  attracted  it  would 


Modeste  Mignon.  29 

seem  by  his  French  nature.  Miss  Grummer  was  worth 
about  four  thousand  dollars  (twenty  thousand  francs), 
which  sum  Dumay  placed  with  his  colonel,  to  whom 
he  now  became  an  alter  ego.  In  a  short  time  he  learned 
to  keep  his  patron's  books,  a  science  which,  to  use  his 
own  expression,  pertains  to  the  sergeant-majors  of  com- 
merce. The  simple-hearted  soldier,  whom  fortune  had 
forgotten  for  twenty  years,  thought  himself  the  happiest 
man  in  the  world  as  the  owner  of  the  little  house  (which 
his  master's  liberality  had  furnished),  with  twelve  hun- 
dred francs  a  year  from  money  in  the  funds,  and  a 
salary  of  three  thousand  six  hundred.  Never  in  his 
dreams  had  Lieutenant  Dumay  hoped  for  a  situation 
so  good  as  this ;  but  greater  still  was  the  satisfaction 
he  derived  from  the  knowledge  that  his  lucky  enter- 
prise had  been  the  pivot  of  good  fortune  to  the  richest 
commercial  house  in  Havre. 

Madame  Dumay,  a  rather  pretty  little  American,  had 
the  misfortune  to  lose  all  her  children  at  their  birth ; 
and  her  last  confinement  was  so  disastrous  as  to  deprive 
her  of  the  hope  of  any  other.  She  therefore  attached 
herself  to  the  two  little  Mignous,  whom  Dumay  himseli 
loved,  or  would  have  loved,  even  better  than  his  own 
children  had  they  lived.  Madame  Dumay,  whose  par- 
ents were  farmers  accustomed  to  a  life  of  economy, 
was  quite  satisfied  to  receive  only  two  thousand  four 
hundred  francs  for  her  own  and  her  household  expenses  ; 
so  that  every  year  Dumay  laid  by  two  thousand  and 
some  extra  hundreds  with  the  house  of  Mignon.  When 
the  yearly  accounts  were  made  up  the  colonel  alwaj's 
added  something  to  this  little  store  03'  way  of  acknowl- 
edging the  cashier's  services,  until  in  1824  the  latter 


30  Modeste   Mignon. 

had  a  credit  of  fifty-eight  thousand  francs.  It  was  then 
that  Charles  Mignon,  Comte  de  La  Bastie,  a  title  he 
never  used,  crowned  his  cashier  with  the  final  happi- 
ness of  residing  at  the  Chalet,  where  at  the  time  when 
this  story  begins  Madame  Mignon  and  her  daughter 
were  living  in  obscurit3T. 

The  deplorable  state  of  Madame  Mignon's  health  was 
caused  in  part  by  the  catastrophe  to  which  the  absence 
of  her  husband  was  due.  Grief  had  taken  three  years 
to  break  down  the  docile  German  woman  ;  but  it  was  a 
grief  that  gnawed  at  her  heart  like  a  worm  at  the  core 
of  a  sound  fruit.  It  is  easy  to  reckon  up  its  obvious 
causes.  Two  children,  dying  in  infancy,  had  a  double 
grave  in  a  soul  that  could*  never  forget.  The  exile  of 
her  husband  to  Siberia  was  to  such  a  woman  a  daily 
death.  The  failure  of  the  rich  house  of  Wallenrod,  and 
the  death  of  her  father,  leaving  his  coffers  empty,  was  to 
Bettina,  then  uncertain  as  to  the  fate  of  her  husband,  a 
terrible  blow.  The  joy  of  Charles's  return  came  near  kill- 
ing the  tender  German  flower.  After  that  the  second  fall 
of  the  Empire  and  the  proposed  expatriation  acted  on  her 
feelings  like  a  renewed  attack  of  the  same  fever.  At 
last,  however,  after  ten  3-ears  of  continual  prosperity,  the 
comforts  of  her  house,  which  was  the  finest  in. Havre,  the 
dinners,  balls,  and  fetes  of  a  prosperous  merchant, 
the  splendors  of  the  villa  Mignon,  the  unbounded  re- 
spect and  consideration  enjo}*ed  b}^  her  husband,  his 
absolute  affection,  giving  her  an  unrivalled  love  in  re- 
turn for  her  single-minded  love  for  him,  —  all  these  things 
brought  the  poor  woman  back  to  life.  At  the  moment 
when  her  doubts  and  fears  at  last  left  her,  when  she 
could  look  forward  to  the  bright  evening  of  her  stormy 


Modeste   Mignon.  31 

life,  a  hidden  catastrophe,  buried  in  the  heart  of  the 
family,  and  of  which  we  shall  presently  make  mention, 
came  as  the  precursor  of  renewed  trials. 

In  Januar}',  1826,  on  the  da}7  when  Havre  had  un- 
animously chosen  Charles  Mignon  as  its  deput}7,  three 
letters,  arriving  from  New  York,  Paris,  and  London 
fell  with  the  destruction  of  a  hammer  upon  the  crystal 
palace  of  his  prosperity.  In  an  instant  ruin  like  a 
vulture  swooped  down  upon  their  happiness,  just  as  the 
cold  fell  in  1812  upon  the  grand  army  in  Russia.  One 
night  sufficed  Charles  Mignon  to  decide  upon  his  course, 
and  he  spent  it  in  settling  his  accounts  with  Dumay. 
All  he  owned,  not  excepting  his  furniture,  would  just 
suffice  to  pay  his  creditors. 

"  Havre  shall  never  see  me  doing  nothing,"  said  the 
colonel  to  the  lieutenant.  "  Dumay,  I  take  your  sixty 
thousand  francs  at  six  per  cent." 

"  Three,  my  colonel." 

"  At  nothing,  then,"  cried  Mignon,  peremptorily ; 
"  you  shall  have  your  share  in  the  profits  of  what  I 
now  undertake.  The  '  Modeste/  which  is  no  longer 
mine,  sails  to-morrow,  and  I  sail  in  her.  I  commit  to 
you  my  wife  and  my  daughter.  I  shall  not  write.  No 
news  must  be  taken  as  good  news." 

Dumay,  always  subordinate,  asked  no  questions  of 
his  colonel.  "I  think,"  he  said  to  Latournelle  with  a 
knowing  little  glance,  "  that  my  colonel  has  a  plan  laid 
out." 

The  following  day  at  dawn  he  accompanied  his  mas- 
ter on  board  the  "  Modeste  "  bound  for  Constantinople. 
There,  on  the  poop  of  the  vessel,  the  Breton  said  to  the 
Provencal,  — 


32  Modeste   Mignon. 

"  What  are  your  last  commands,  my  colonel?" 

"That  no  man  shall  enter  the  Chalet,"  cried  the 
father  with  strong  emotion.  "  Duma}7,  guard  my  last 
child  as  though  you  were  a  bull-dog.  Death  to  the  man 
who  seduces  another  daughter !  Fear  nothing,  not  even 
the  scaffold  —  I  will  be  with  you." 

"  My  colonel,  go  in  peace.  I  understand  3'ou.  You 
shall  find  Mademoiselle  Modeste  on  your  return  such 
as  you  now  give  her  to  me,  or  I  shall  be  dead.  You 
know  me,  and  you  know  your  Pyrenees  hounds.  No 
man  shall  reach  your  daughter.  Forgive  me  for  troub- 
ling you  with  words." 

The  two  soldiers  clasped  arms  like  men  who  had 
learned  to  understand  each  other  in  the  solitudes  of 
Siberia. 

On  the  same  day  the  Havre  u  Courier"  published 
the  following  terrible,  simple,  energetic,  and  honorable 
notice :  — 

"  The  house  of  Charles  Mignon  suspends  payment.  But 
the  undersigned,  assignees  of  the  estate,  undertake  to  pay  all 
liabilities.  On  and  after  this  date,  holders  of  notes  may  ob- 
tain the  usual  discount.  The  sale  of  the  landed  estates  will 
fully  cover  all  current  indebtedness. 

"  This  notice  is  issued  for  the  honor  of  the  house,  and  to 
prevent  any  disturbance  in  the  money-market  of  this  town. 

"  Monsieur  Charles  Mignon  sailed  this  morning  on  the 
'  Modeste '  for  Asia  Minor,  leaving  full  powers  with  the  un- 
dersigned to  sell  his  whole  property,  both  landed  and  per- 
sonal. 

Dumay,  assignee  of  the  Bank  accounts, 
Latournelle,  notary,  assignee  of  the  city  and  villa 

property, 
Gobenheim,  assignee  of  the  commercial  property." 


Modeste   Mignon.  33 

Latournelle  owed  his  prosperity  to  the  kindness  of 
Monsieur  Mignon,  who  lent  him  one  hundred  thousand 
francs  in  1817  to  buy  the  finest  law  practice  in  Havre. 
The  poor  man,  who  had  no  pecuniary  means,  was  nearly 
forty  years  of  age  and  saw  no  prospect  of  being  other 
than  head-clerk  for  the  rest  of  his  days.  He  was  the 
only  man  in  Havre  whose  devotion  could  be  compared 
with  Dumay's.  As  for  Gobenheim,  he  profited  by  the 
liquidation  to  get  a  part  of  Monsieur  Mignon's  business, 
which  lifted  his  own  little  bank  into  prominence. 

While  unanimous  regrets  for  the  disaster  were  ex- 
pressed in  counting-rooms,  on  the  wharves,  and  in 
private  houses,  where  praises  of  a  man  so  irreproach- 
able, honorable,  and  beneficent  filled  every  mouth, 
Latournelle  and  Dumay,  silent  and  active  as  ants,  sold 
land,  turned  property  into  money,  paid  the  debts,  and 
settled  up  everything.  Vilquin  showed  a  good  deal  of 
generosity  in  purchasing  the  villa,  the  town-house,  and 
a  farm  ;  and  Latournelle  made  the  most  of  his  liberality 
b}^  getting  a  good  price  out  of  him.  Societ3r  wished  to 
show  civilities  to  Madame  and  Mademoiselle  Mignon ; 
but  they  had  already  obeyed  the  father's  last  wishes 
and  taken  refuge  in  the  Chalet,  where  they  went  on  the 
very  morning  of  his  departure,  the  exact  hour  of  which 
had  been  concealed  from  them.  Not  to  be  shaken  in 
his  resolution  by  his  grief  at  parting,  the  brave  man 
said  farewell  to  his  wife  and  daughter  while  they  slept. 
Three  hundred  visiting  cards  were  left  at  the  house. 
A  fortnight  later,  just  as  Charles  had  predicted,  com- 
plete forgetfulness  settled  down  upon  the  Chalet,  and 
proved  to  these  women  the  wisdom  and  dignity  of  his 
command. 

3 


34  Modeste   Mignon. 

Dumay  sent  agents  to  represent  his  master  in  New 
York,  Paris,  and  London,  and  followed  up  the  assign- 
ments of  the  three  banking-houses  whose  failure  had 
caused  the  ruin  of  the  Havre  house,  thus  realizing  five 
hundred  thousand  francs  between  1826  and  1828,  an 
eighth  of  Charles'  whole  fortune ;  then,  according  to 
the  latter's  directions  given  on  the  night  of  his  depart- 
ure, he  sent  that  sum  to  New  York  through  the  house 
of  Mongenod  to  the  credit  of  Monsieur  Charles  Mignon. 
All  this  was  done  with  military  obedience,  except  in  a 
matter  of  withholding  thirty  thousand  francs  for  the  per- 
sonal expenses  of  Madame  and  Mademoiselle  Mignon 
as  the  colonel  had  ordered  him  to  do,  but  which  Dumay 
did  not  do.  The  Breton  sold  his  own  little  house  for 
twenty  thousand  francs,  which  sum  he  gave  to  Madame 
Mignon,  believing  that  the  more  capital  he  sent  to  his 
colonel  the  sooner  the  latter  would  return. 

"He  might  perish  for  the  want  of  that  thirty  thou- 
sand francs,"  Dumay  remarked  to  Latournelle,  who 
bought  the  little  house  at  its  full  value,  where  an  ap- 
partment  was  always  kept  ready  for  the  inhabitants  of 
the  Chalet. 


Modeste   Mignon.  35 


CHAPTER  IV. 

A   SIMPLE   STORY. 

Such  was  the  result  to  the  celebrated  house  of  Mi- 
gnon at  Havre  of  the  crisis  of  1825-26,  which  convulsed 
many  of  the  principal  business  centres  in  Europe  and 
caused  the  ruin  of  several  Parisian  bankers,  among 
them  (as  those  who  remember  that  crisis  will  recall) 
the  president  of  the  chamber  of  commerce. 

We  can  now  understand  how  this  great  disaster, 
coming  suddenly  at  the  close  of  ten  j^ears  of  domestic 
happiness,  might  well  have  been  the  death  of  Bettina 
Mignon,  again  separated  from  her  husband  and  igno- 
rant of  his  fate,  —  to  her  as  adventurous  and  perilous  as 
the  exile  to  Siberia.  But  the  grief  which  was  dragging 
her  to  the  grave  was  far  other  than  these  visible  sor- 
rows. The  caustic  that  was  slowly  eating  into  her 
heart  lay  beneath  a  stone  in  the  little  graveyard  of  In- 
gouville,  on  which  was  inscribed  :  — 

BETTINA  CAROLINE   MIGNON. 

DIED    AGED   TWENTY-TWO. 
PRAY   FOR   HER. 

This  inscription  is  to  the  young  girl  whom  it  covered 
what  many  another  epitaph  has  been  for  the  dead  lying 
beneath  them,  —  a  table  of  contents  to  a  hidden  book. 


36  Modeste  Mignon. 

Here  is  the  book,  in  its  dreadful  brevity ;  and  it  will 
explain  the  oath  exacted  and  taken  when  the  colonel 
and  the  lieutenant  bade  each  other  farewell. 

A  young  man  of  charming  appearance,  named  Charles 
d'  Estourny,  came  to  Havre  for  the  commonplace  pur- 
pose of  being  near  the  sea,  and  there  he  saw  Bettina 
Mignon.  A  soi-disant  fashionable  Parisian  is  never 
without  introductions,  and  he  was  invited  at  the  in- 
stance of  a  friend  of  the  Mignons  to  a  fete  given  at 
Ingouville.  He  fell  in  love  with  Bettina  and  with  her 
fortune,  and  in  three  months  he  had  done  the  work  of 
seduction  and  enticed  her  away.  The  father  of  a  family 
of  daughters  should  no  more  allow  a  young  man  whom 
he  does  not  know  to  enter  his  home  than  he  should 
leave  books  and  papers  lying  about  which  he  has  not 
read.  A  young  girl's  innocence  is  like  milk,  which  a 
small  matter  turns  sour,  —  a  clap  of  thunder,  an  evil 
odor,  a  hot  day,  a  mere  breath. 

When  Charles  Mignon  read  his  daughter's  letter  of 
farewell  he  instantly  despatched  Madame  Dumay  to 
Paris.  The  family  gave  out  that  a  journey  to  another 
climate  had  suddenly  been  advised  for  Caroline  by  their 
physician ;  and  the  physician  himself  sustained  the 
excuse,  though  unable  to  prevent  some  gossip  in  the 
society  of  Havre.  "  Such  a  vigorous  young  girl !  with 
the  complexion  of  a  Spaniard,  and  that  black  hair !  — 
she  consumptive  !"  "Yes,  they  say  she  committed 
some  imprudence. "  "  Ah,  ah  !  "  cried  a  Vilquin.  "  I 
am  told  she  came  back  bathed  in  perspiration  after 
riding  on  horseback,  and  drank  iced  water;  at  least, 
that  is  what  Dr.  Troussenard  says." 

By  the  time  Madame  Dumay  returned  to  Havre  the 


Modest e    Mignon.  37 

catastrophe  of  the  failure  had  taken  place,  and  society 
paid  no  further  attention  to  the  absence  of  Bettina  or 
the  return  of  the  cashier's  wife.  At  the  beginning  of 
1827  the  newspapers  rang  with  the  trial  of  Charles 
d'  Estourny,  who  was  found  guilty  of  cheating  at  cards. 
The  young  corsair  escaped  into  foreign  parts  without 
taking  thought  of  Mademoiselle  Mignon,  who  was  of 
little  value  to  him  since  the  failure  of  the  bank.  Bet- 
tina heard  of  his  infamous  desertion  and  of  her  father's 
ruin  almost  at  the  same  time.  She  returned  home 
struck  by  death,  and  wasted  away  in  a  short  time  at 
the  Chalet.  Her  death  at  least  protected  her  reputation. 
The  illness  that  Monsieur  Mignon  alleged  to  be  the 
cause  of  her  absence,  and  the  doctor's  order  which  sent 
her  to  Nice  were  now  generally  believed.  Up  to  the 
last  moment  the  mother  hoped  to  save  her  daughter's 
life.  Bettina  was  her  darling  and  Modeste  was  the 
father's.  There  was  something  touching  in  the  two 
preferences.  Bettina  was  the  image  of  Charles,  just  as 
Modeste  was  the  reproduction  of  her  mother.  Both 
parents  continued  their  love  for  each  other  in  their 
children.  Bettina,  a  daughter  of  Provence,  inherited 
from  her  father  the  beautiful  hair,  black  as  a  raven's 
wing,  which  distinguishes  the  women  of  the  South, 
the  brown  eye,  almond-shaped  and  brilliant  as  a  star, 
the  olive  tint,  the  velvet  skin  as  of  some  golden  fruit, 
the  arched  instep,  and  the  Spanish  waist  from  which  the 
short  basque  skirt  fell  crisply.  Both  mother  and  father 
were  proud  of  the  charming  contrast  between  the  sis- 
ters. "  A  devil  and  an  angel !  "  they  said  to  each  other, 
laughing,  little  thinking  it  prophetic. 

After  weeping  for  a  month  in  the  solitude  of  her 


38  Modeste   Mignon. 

chamber,  where  she  admitted  no  one,  thermother  came 
forth  at  last  with  injured  eyes.  Before  losing  her  sight 
altogether  she  persisted,  against  the  wishes  of  her 
friends,  in  visiting  her  daughter's  grave,  on  which  she 
riveted  her  gaze  in  contemplation.  That  image  re- 
mained vivid  in  the  darkness  which  now  fell  upon  her, 
just  as  the  red  spectrum  of  an  object  shines  in  our 
eyes  when  we  close  them  in  full  daylight.  This  ter- 
rible and  double  misfortune  made  Dumay,  not  less 
devoted,  but  more  anxious  about  Modeste,  now  the 
only  daughter  of  the  father  who  was  unaware  of  his 
loss.  Madame  Dumay,  idolizing  Modeste,  like  other 
women  deprived  of  their  children,  cast  her  motherliness 
about  the  girl,  —  yet  without  disregarding  the  com- 
mands of  her  husband,  who  distrusted  female  intimacies. 
Those  commands  were  brief.  "  If  any  man,  of  any  age, 
or  any  rank,"  Duma}7  said,  "  speaks  to  Modeste,  ogles 
her,  makes  love  to  her,  he  is  a  dead  man.  I  '11  blow  his 
brains  out  and  give  myself  up  to  the  authorities ;  my 
death  may  save  her.  If  you  don't  wish  to  see  m}-  head 
cut  off,  do  you  take  my  place  in  watching  her  when  I 
am  obliged  to  go  out." 

For  the  last  three  years  Dumay  had  examined  his 
pistols  every  night.  He  seemed  to  have  put  half  the 
burden  of  his  oath  upon  the  Pyrenean  hounds,  two 
animals  of  uncommon  sagacity.  One  slept  inside  the 
Chalet,  the  other  was  stationed  in  a  kennel  which  he 
never  left,  and  where  he  never  barked;  but  terrible 
would  have  been  the  moment  had  the  pair  made  their 
teeth  meet  in  some  unknown  adventurer. 

We  can  now  imagine  the  sort  of  life  led  by  mother 
and  daughter  at  the  Chalet.     Monsieur  and  Madame 


Modeste   Mignon.  39 

Latournelle,  often  accompanied  'by  Gobenheim,  came 
to  call  and  play  whist  with  Dumay  nearly  every  even- 
ing. The  conversation  turned  on  the  gossip  of  Havre 
and  the  petty  events  of  provincial  life.  The  little  com- 
pany separated  between  nine  and  ten  o'clock.  Modeste 
put  her  mother  to  bed,  and  together  they  said  their 
pra}Ters,  kept  up  each  other's  courage,  and  talked  of 
the  dear  absent  one,  the  husband  and  father.  After  kiss- 
ing her  mother  for  good-night,  the  girl  went  to  her  own 
room  about  ten  o'clock.  The  next  morning  she  prepared 
her  mother  for  the  day  with  the  same  care,  the  same 
prayers,  the  same  prattle.  To  her  praise  be  it  said 
that  from  the  day  when  the  terrible  infirmity  deprived 
her  mother  of  a  sense,  Modeste  had  been  like  a  servant 
to  her,  displaying  at  g  all  times  the  same  solicitude ; 
never  wearying  of  the  duty,  never  thinking  it  monoto- 
nous. Such  constant  devotion,  combined  with  a  tender- 
ness rare  among  young  girls,  was  thoroughly  appreciated 
by  those  who  witnessed  it.  To  the  Latournelle  family, 
and  to  Monsieur  and  Madame  Dumay,  Modeste  was, 
in  soul,  the  pearl  of  price. 

On  sunny  days,  between  breakfast  and  dinner, 
Madame  Mignon  and  Madame  Dumay  took  a  little 
walk  toward  the  sea.  Modeste  accompanied  them,  for 
two  arms  were  needed  to  support  the  blind  mother. 
About  a  month  before  the  scene  to  which  this  expla- 
nation is  a  parenthesis,  Madame  Mignon  had  taken 
counsel  with  her  friends,  Madame  Latournelle,  the 
notary,  and  Dumay,  while  Madame  Duma}r  carried 
Modeste  in  another  direction  for  a  longer  walk. 

"  Listen  to  what  I  have  to  say,"  said  the  blind 
woman.     "  My  daughter  is  in  love.     I  feel  it ;  I  see  it. 


40  Modeste   Mignon. 

A  singular  change  has  taken  place  within  her,  and  I  do 
not  see  how  it  is  that  none  of  you  have  perceived  it." 

"  In  the  name  of  all  that 's  honorable —  "cried  the 
lieutenant. 

M  Don't  interrupt  me,  Dumay.  For  the  last  two 
months  Modeste  takes  as  much  care  of  her  personal 
appearance  as  if  she  expected  to  meet  a  lover.  She 
has  grown  extremely  fastidious  about  her  shoes ;  she 
wants  to  set  off  her  pretty  feet ;  she  scolds  Madame 
Gobet,  the  shoemaker.  It  is  the  same  thing  with  her 
milliner,  Some  daj's  my  poor  darling  is  absorbed  in 
thought,  evidently  expectant,  as  if  waiting  for  some 
one.  Her  voice  has  curt  tones  when  she  answers  a 
question,  a?  though  she  were  interrupted  in  the  cur- 
rent of  her  thoughts  and  secret  expectations.  Then,  if 
this  awaited  lover  has  pome  —  " 

4 '  Good  heavens  !  *' 

"  Sit  down,  Dumay/*  said  the  blind  woman.  "Well, 
then  Modeste  is  gay.  Oh !  she  is  not  gay  to  your 
sight ;  }Tou  cannot  catch  these  gradations  ;  they  are  too 
delicate  for  eyes  that  see  only  the  outside  of  nature. 
Her  gayety  is  betrayed  to  me  by  the  tones  of  her  voice, 
by  certain  accents  which  I  alone  can  catch  and  under- 
stand. Modeste  then,  instead  of  sitting  still  and 
thoughtful,  gives  vent  to  a  wild,  inward  *cfirUy  by 
impulsive  movements,  —  in  short,  she  is  ha^ypy.  There 
is  a  grace,  a  charm  in  the  very  ideas  she  utters.  Ah, 
my  friends,  I  know  happiness  as  well  as  I  know  sor- 
row ;  I  know  its  signs.  By  the  kiss  my  Modeste  give* 
me  I  can  guess  what  is  passing  within  her.  I  kno\* 
whether  she  has  received  what  she  was  looking  for,  Ot 
whether  she  is  uneasy  and  expectant.     There  are  manj 


Modest e  Mignon.  41 

gradations  in  a  kiss,  even  in  that  of  an  innocent  young 
girl,  and  Modeste  is  innocence  itself;  but  hers  is  the 
innocence  of  knowledge,  not  of  ignorance.     I  may  be  / 
blind,  but  my  tenderness   is  all-seeing,  and  I  charge  | 
3'ou  to  watch  over  my  daughter." 

Duma}7,  now  actually  ferocious,  the  notary,  in  the 
character  of  a  man  bound  to  ferret  out  a  mystery,  Ma- 
dame Latournelle,  the  deceived  chaperone,  and  Madame 
Dumay,  alarmed  for  her  husband's  safety,  became  at 
once  a  set  of  spies,  and  Modeste  from  this  day  forth  was 
never  left  alone  for  an  instant.  Dumay  passed  nights 
under  her  window  wrapped  in  his  cloak  like  a  jealous  > 
Spaniard ;  but  with  all  his  military  sagacity  he  was 
unable  to  detect  the  least  suspicious  sign.  Unless  she 
loved  the  nightingales  in  the  villa  park,  or  some  fairy 
prince,  Modeste  could  have  seen  no  one,  and  had 
neither  given  nor  received  a  signal.  Madame  Dumay, 
who  never  went  to  bed  till  she  knew  Modeste  was 
asleep,  watched  the  road  from  the  upper  windows  of 
the  Chalet  with  a  vigilance  equal  to  her  husband's. 
Under  these  eight  Argus  eyes  the  blameless  child,  whose 
every  motion  was  studied  and  analyzed,  came  out  of 
the  ordeal  so  fully  acquitted  of  all  criminal  conversation 
that  the  four  friends  declared  to  each  other  privately 
that  Madame  Mignon  was  foolishly  over-anxious. 
Madame  Latournelle,  who  always  took  Modeste  to 
church  and  brought  her  back  again,  was  commissioned 
to  tell  the  mother  that  she  was  mistaken  about  her 
daughter. 

"  Modeste,"  she  said,  uis  a  young  girl  of  very  ex- 
alted ideas ;  she  works  herself  into  enthusiasm  for  the 
poetry  of  one  writer  or  the  prose  of  another.     You 


42  Modeste  Mignon. 

have  only  to  judge  by  the  impression  made  upon  her  by 
that  scaffold  symphony,  '  The  Last  Hours  of  a  Convict  <J 
[the  saying  was  Butscha's,  who  supplied  wit  to  his  bene- 
factress with  a  lavish  hand]  ;  she  seemed  to  me  all  but  . 
crazy  with  admiration  for  that  Monsieur  Hugo.  I'm 
sure  I  don't  know  where  such  people  [Victor  Hugo, 
Lamartine,  Byron  being  such  people  to  the  Madame 
Latournelles  of  the  bourgeoisie]  get  their  ideas.  Mo- 
deste kept  talking  to  me  of  Childe  Harold,  and  as  I  did 
not  wish  to  get  the  worst  of  the  argument  I  was  silly 
enough  to  trj*  to  read  the  thing.  Perhaps  it  was  the 
fault  of  the  translator,  but  it  actually  turned  my  stom- 
ach ;  I  was  dazed  ;  I  could  n't  possibly  finish  it.  Why, 
the  man  talks  about  comparisons  that  howl,  rocks  that 
faint,  and  waves  of  war !  However,  he  is  only  a  trav- 
elling Englishman,  and  we  must  expect  absurdities,  — 
though  his  are  really  inexcusable.  He  takes  you  to 
Spain,  and  sets  you  in  the  clouds  above  the  Alps,  and 
makes  the  torrents  talk,  and  the  stars  ;  and  he  says  there 
are  too  many  virgins !  Did  you  ever  hear  the  like  ? 
Then,  after  Napoleon's  campaigns,  the  lines  are  full  of 
sonorous  brass  and  flaming  cannon-balls,  rolling  along 
from  page  to  page.  Modeste  tells  me  that  all  that 
bathos  is  put  in  by  the  translator,  and  that  I  ought  to 
read  the  book  in  English.  But  I  certainly  sha'n't  learn 
English  to  read  Lord  Byron  when  I  did  n't  learn  it 
to  teach  Exupere.  I  much  prefer  the  novels  of  Ducray- 
Dumenil  to  all  these  English  romances.  I'm  too  good 
a  Norman  to  fall  in  love  with  foreign  things,  —  above 
all  when  they  come  from  England." 

Madame  Mignon,  notwithstanding   her  melancholy, 
could  not  help  smiling  at  the  idea  of  Madame  Latournelie 


Modeste   Mignon.  43 

reading  Childe  Harold.  The  stern  scion  of  a  parlia- 
mentary house  accepted  the  smile  as  an  approval  of 
her  doctrines. 

"  And,  therefore,  my  dear  Madame  Mignon,"  she 
went  on,  "  you  have  taken  Modeste's  fancies,  which  are 
nothing  but  the  results  of  her  reading,  for  a  love-affair. 
Remember,  she  is  just  twenty.  Girls  fall  in  love  with 
themselves  at  that  age ;  the}7  dress  to  see  themselves 
well-dressed.  I  remember  I  used  to  make  my  little 
sister,  now  dead,  put  on  a  man's  hat  and  pretend  we 
were  monsieur  and  madame.  You  see,  you  had  a  very 
happy  youth  in  Frankfort ;  but  let  us  be  just,  —  Mo- 
deste is  living  here  without,  the  slightest  amusement. 
Although,  to  be  sure,  her  ever}7  wish  is  attended  to,  still 
she  knows  she  is  shut  up  and  watched,  and  the  life  she 
leads  would  give  her  no  pleasures  at  all  if  it  were  not 
for  the  amusement  she  gets  out  of  her  books.  Come, 
don't  worry  yourself;  she  loves  nobody  but  you.  You 
ought  to  be  very  glad  that  she  goes  into  'these  enthu- 
siasms for  the  corsairs  of  BjTon  and  the  heroes  of 
Walter  Scott  and  your  own  Germans,  Egmont,  Goethe, 
Werther,  Schiller,  and  all  the  other  c  ers.' " 

"  Well,  madame,  what  do  you  say  to  that  ?"  asked 
Dumay,  respectfully,  alarmed  at  Madame  Mignon's 
silence. 

M  Modeste  is  not  only  inclined  to  love,  but  she  loves 
some  man,"  answered  the  mother,  obstinately. 

li  Madame,  nry  life  is  at  stake,  and  you  must  allow 
me  —  not  for  my  sake,  but  for  my  wife,  my  colonel,  for 
all  of  us  —  to  probe  this  matter  to  the  bottom,  and  find 
out  whether  it  is  the  mother  or  the  watch-dog  who  is 
deceived." 


44  Modeste   Mignon. 

"It  is  you  who  are  deceived,  Duma}7.  Ah!  if  I 
could  but  see  my  daughter ! "  cried  the  poor  woman. 

"But  whom  is  it  possible  for  her  to  love?"  asked  the 
notary.     "  I  '11  answer  for  my  Exupere." 

"It  can't  be  Gobenheim,"  said  Dumay,  "for  since 
the  colonel's  departure  he  has  not  spent  nine  hours 
a  week  in  this  house.  Besides,  he  does  n't  even  no- 
tice Modeste  —  that  five-franc-piece  of  a  man  !  His 
uncle  Gobenheim-Keller  is  all  the  time  writing  him, 
'  Get  rich  enough  to  marry  a  Keller.'  With  that  idea 
in  his  mind  }'ou  may  be  sure  he  does  n't  know  which 
sex  Modeste  belongs  to.  No  other  men  ever  come 
here,  —  for  of  course  I  don't  count  Butscha,  poor  little 
fellow ;  I  love  him  !  He  is  }Tour  Dumay,  madame," 
said  the  cashier  to  Madame  Latournelle.  "  Butscha 
knows  very  well  that  a  mere  glance  at  Modeste  would 
cost  him  a  Breton  ducking.  Not  a  soul  has  any  com- 
munication with  this  house.  Madame  Latournelle  who 
takes  Modeste  to  church  ever  since  your  —  your  great 
misfortune,  madame,  has  carefully  watched  her  on  the 
wa}T  and  all  through  the  service,  and  has  seen  nothing 
suspicious.  In  short,  if  I  must  confess  the  truth,  I 
have  myself  raked  all  the  paths  about  the  house  every 
evening  for  the  last  month,  and  found  no  trace  of  foot- 
steps in  the  morning." 

"  Rakes  are  neither  costly  nor  difficult  to  handle," 
remarked  the  daughter  of  Germany. 

"  But  the  clogs  ?  "  cried  Dumay. 

"  Lovers  have  philters  for  even  dogs,"  answered  Ma- 
dame Mignon. 

"  If  you  are  right,  my  honor  is  lost !  I  may  as  well 
blow  my  brains  out,"  exclaimed  Dumay. 


Modeste   Mignon.  45 

"  Why  so,  Dumay  ?  "  said  the  blind  woman. 

"  Ah,  madame,  I  could  never  meet  my  colonel's  eye 
if  he  did  not  find  his  daughter  —  now  his  only  daugh- 
ter —  as  pure  and  virtuous  as  she  was  when  he  said  to 
me  on  the  vessel,  '  Let  no  fear  of  the  scaffold  hinder 
you,  Dumay,  if  the  honor  of  nry  Modeste  is  at  stake.'  " 

"  Ah  !  I  recognize  you  both,"  said  Madame  Mignon 
in  a  voice  of  strong  emotion. 

"  I  '11  wager  my  salvation  that  Modeste  is  as  pure  as 
she  was  in  her  cradle,"  exclaimed  Madame  Dumay. 

"  Well,  I  shall  make  certain  of  it,"  replied  her  hus- 
band, "  if  Madame  la  Comtesse  will  allow  me  to  employ 
certain  means  ;  for  old  troopers  understand  strategy." 

"  I  will  allow  you  to  do  an}Tthing  that  shall  enlighten 
us,  provided  it  does  no  injury  to  my  last  child." 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do,  Jean  ?  "  asked  Madame 
Dumay;  "  how  can  you  discover  a  young  girl's  secret 
if  she  means  to  hide  it  ?  " 

"  Obey  me,  all !  "  cried  the  lieutenant,  "  I  shall  need 
every  one  of  you." 

If  this  rapid  sketch  were  cleverly  developed  it  would 
give  a  whole  picture  of  manners  and  customs  in  which 
many  a  family  could  recognize  the  events  of  their  own 
history ;  but  it  must  suffice  as  it  is  to  explain  the 
importance  of  the  few  details  heretofore  given  about 
persons  and  things  on  the  memorable  evening  when  the 
old  soldier  had  made  ready  his  plot  against  the  young 
girl,  intending  to  wrench  from  the  recesses  of  her  heart 
the  secret  of  a  love  and  a  lover  seen  only  bjT  a  blind 
mother. 


46  Mode  ate    Mignon. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE   PROBLEM   STILL   UNSOLVED. 

An  hour  went  b}'  in  solemn  stillness  broken  only 
by  the  cabalistic  phrases  of  the  whist  -  players  : 
"  Spades !"  "  Trumped  ! "  "  Cut !  "  "  How  are  honors  ?  " 
"  Two  to  four."  "  Whose  deal?  "  —  phrases  which  repre- 
sent in  these  dajs  the  higher  emotions  of  the  European 
aristocracy.  Modeste  continued  to  work,  without  seem- 
ing to  be  surprised  at  her  mother's  silence.  Madame 
Mignon's  handkerchief  slipped  from  her  lap  to  the  floor ; 
Butscha  precipitated  himself  upon  it,  picked  it  up,  and 
as  he  returned  it  whispered  in  Modeste's  ear,  "  Take 
care !  "  Modeste  raised  a  pair  of  wondering  eyes, 
whose  puzzled  glance  filled  the  poor  cripple  with  joy 
unspeakable.  "  She  is  not  in  love  !  "  he  whispered  to 
himself,  rubbing  his  hands  till  the  skin  was  nearly 
peeled  off.  At  this  moment  Exupere  tore  through  the 
garden  and  the  house,  plunged  into  the  salon  like  an 
avalanche,  and  said  to  Dumay  in  an  audible  whisper, 
"•The  young  man  is  here!"  Dumay  sprang  for  his 
pistols  and  rushed  out. 

"  Good  God  !  suppose  he  kills  him !  "  cried  Madame 
Dumay,  bursting  into  tears. 

"What  is  the  matter?"  asked  Modeste,  looking  inno- 
cently at  her  friends  and  not  betraying  the  slightest 
fear. 


Modeste   Mignon.  47 

"  It  is  all  about  a  young  man  who  is  hanging  round 
the  house,"  cried  Madame  Latournelle. 

"Well!"  said  Modeste,  "  why  should  Dumay  kill 
him?" 

"  Sancta  simplicitaf"  ejaculated  Butscha,  looking 
at  his  master  as  proudly  as  Alexander  is  made  to  con- 
template Babylon  in  Lebrun's  great  picture. 

"  Where  are  you  going,  Modeste?  "  asked  the  mother 
as  her  daughter  rose  to  leave  the  room. 

"To  get  ready  for  your  bedtime,  mamma,"  an- 
swered Modeste,  in  a  voice  as  pure  as  the  tones  of 
an  instrument. 

"  You  haven't  paid  your  expenses,"  said  the  dwarf 
to  Dumay  when  he  returned. 

"Modeste  is  as  pure  as  the  Virgin  on  our  altar," 
cried  Madame  Latournelle. 

"Good  God!  such  excitements  wear  me  out,"  said 
Dumay  ;  "  and  yet  I  'm  a  strong  man." 

"  May  I  lose  that  twenty-five  sous  if  I  have  the 
slightest  idea  what  you  are  about,"  remarked  Goben- 
heim.     "  You  seem  to  me  to  be  crazy." 

"  And  yet  it  is  all  about  a  treasure,"  said  Butscha, 
standing  on  tiptoe  to  whisper  in  Gobenheim's  ear. 

"  Dumay,  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  I  am  still  almost 
certain  of  what  I  told  you,"  persisted  Madame  Mignon. 

"  The  burden  of  proof  is  now  on  you,  madame," 
said  Dumay,  calmly;  "it  is  for  you  to  prove  that  we 
are  mistaken." 

Discovering  that  the  matter  in  question  was  only 
Modeste's  honor,  Gobenheim  took  his  hat,  made  his 
bow,  and  walked  off,  carrying  his  ten  sous  with  him,  — 
there  being  evidently  no  hope  of  another  rubber. 


48  Modeste    Mignon. 


"  Exupere,  and  you  too,  Butscha,  may  leave  us," 
said  Madame  Latournelle.  "  Go  back  to  Havre;  you 
will  get  there  in  time  for  the  last  piece  at  the  theatre. 
I  '11  pay  for  }Tour  tickets." 

When  the  four  friends  were  alone  with  Madame 
Mignon,  Madame  Latournelle,  after  looking  at  Duma}', 
who  being  a  Breton  understood  the  mother's  obstinacj', 
and  at  her  husband  who  was  fingering  the  cards,  felt 
herself  authorized  to  speak  up. 

11  Madame  Mignon,  come  now,  tell  us  what  decisive 
thing  has  struck  your  mind." 

"  Ah,  my  good  friend,  if  you  were  a  musician  }'ou 
would  have  heard,  as  I  have,  the  language  of  love  that 
Modeste  speaks." 

The  piano  of  the  demoiselles  Mignon  was  among  the 
few  articles  of  furniture  which  had  been  moved  from 
the  town-house  to  the  Chalet.  Modeste  often  conjured 
away  her  troubles  by  practising,  without  a  master. 
Born  a  musician,  she  pla}Ted  to  enliven  her  mother. 
She  sang  hy  nature,  and  loved  the  German  airs  which 
her  mother  taught  her.  From  these  lessons  and  these 
attempts  at  self-instruction  came  a  phenomenon  not 
uncommon  to  natures  with  a  musical  vocation  ;  Modeste 
composed,  as  far  as  a  person  ignorant  of  the  laws  of  har- 
Taony  can  be  said  to  compose,  tender  little  lyric  melo- 
dies. Melody  is  to  music  what  imagery  and  sentiment 
are  to  poetry,  a  flower  that  blossoms  spontaneously. 
Consequently,  nations  have  had  melodies  before  har- 
mony,—  botany  comes  later  than  the  flower.  In  like 
manner,  Modeste,  who  knew  nothing  of  the  painter's 
art  except  what  she  had  seen  her  sister  do  in  the  wa}r 
of  water-color,  would  have   stood   subdued  and  fasci- 


Modeste   Mignon.  49 

nated  before  the  pictures  of  Raphael,  Titian,  Rubens, 
Murillo,  Rembrandt,  Albert  Durer,  Holbein,  —  in  other 
words,  before  the  great  ideals  of  many  lands.  Lately, 
for  at  least  a  month,  Modeste  had  warbled  the  songs 
of  nightingales,  musical  rhapsodies  whose  poetry  and 
meaning  had  roused  the  attention  of  her  mother,  al- 
ready surprised  by  her  sudden  eagerness  for  composition 
and  her  fancy  for  putting  airs  to  certain  verses. 

"  If  your  suspicions  have  no  other  foundation,"  said 
Latournelle  to  Madame  Mignon,  "  I  pity  your  suscep- 
tibilities." 

II  When  a  Breton  girl  sings,"  said  Dumay  gloomily, 
u  the  lover  is  not  far  off." 

II I  will  let  you  hear  Modeste  when  she  is  impro- 
vising," said  the  mother,  "  and  you  shall  judge  for 
yourselves  —  " 

"Poor  girl!  "said  Madame  Dumay,  "  If  she  only 
knew  our  anxiety  she  would  be  deeply  distressed ;  she 
would  tell  us  the  truth,  —  especially  if  she  thought  it 
would  save  Dumay." 

"My  friends,  I  will  question  my  daughter  to-morrow," 
said  Madame  Mignon  ;  "  perhaps  I  shall  obtain  more 
by  tenderness  than  you  have  discovered  hy  trickery." 

Was  the  comedy  of  the  "  Fille  mal  Gardee  "  being 
played  here,  —  as  it  is  everywhere  and  forever,  —  under 
the  noses  of  these  faithful  spies,  these  honest  Bartholos, 
these  Pyrenean  hounds,  without  their  being  able  to 
ferret  out,  detect,  nor  even  surmise  the  lover,  the  love- 
affair,  or  the  smoke  of  the  fire?  At  any  rate  it  was 
certainly  not  the  result  of  a  struggle  between  the  jail- 
ers and  the  prisoner,  between  the  despotism  of  a 
dungeon  and  the  liberty  of  a  victim,  —  it  was  simply 
4 


50  Modeste   Mignon. 

the  never-ending  repetition  of  the  first  scene  played  by 
man  when  the  curtain  of  the  Creation  rose ;  it  was  Eve 
in  Paradise. 

And  now,  which  of  the  two,  the  mother  or  the  watch- 
dog, had  the  right  of  it  ? 

None  of  the  persons  who  were  about  Modeste  could 
understand  that  maiden  heart  —  for  the  soul  and  the 
face  we  have  described  were  in  harmon}-.  The  girl  had 
transported  her  existence  into  another  world,  as  much 
denied  and  disbelieved  in  in  these  days  of  ours  as  the 
new  world  of  Christopher  Columbus  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  Happily,  she  kept  her  own  counsel,  or  they 
would  have  thought  her  crazy.  But  first  we  must 
explain  the  influence  of  the  past  upon  her  nature. 

Two  events  had  formed  the  soul  and  developed  the 
mind  of  this  young  girl.  Monsieur  and  Madame 
Mignon,  warned  by  the  fate  that  overtook  Bettina, 
had  resolved,  just  before  the  failure,  to  marry  Modeste. 
They  chose  the  son  of  a  rich  banker,  formerly  of  Ham- 
burg, but  established  in  Havre  since  1815, — a  man, 
moreover,  who  was  under  obligations  to  them.  The 
37oung  man,  whose  name  was  Francisque  Althor,  the 
dandy  of  Havre,  blessed  with  a  certain  vulgar  beauty 
in  which  the  middle  classes  delight,  well-made,  well- 
fleshed,  and  with  a  fine  complexion,  abandoned  his 
betrothed  so  hastily  on  the  day  of  her  father's  failure 
that  neither  Modeste  nor  her  mother  nor  either  of  the 
Dumays  had  seen  him  since.  Latournelle  ventured  a 
question  on  the  subject  to  Jacob  Althor,  the  father ; 
but  he  only  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  replied,  "  I 
really  don't  know  what  you  mean." 

This  answer,  told  to  Modeste  to  give  her  some  expe- 


I 


Modeste   Mignon.  51 

rience  of  life,  was  a  lesson  which  she  learned  all  the 
more  readily  because  Latournelle  and  Dumay  made 
many  and  long  comments  on  the  cowardly  desertion. 
The  daughters  of  Charles  Mignon,  like  spoiled  children, 
had  all  their  wishes  gratified  ;  they  rode  on  horseback, 
kept  their  own  horses  and  grooms,  and  otherwise  en- 
jo.yed  a  perilous  liberty.  Seeing  herself  in  possession 
of  an  official  lover,  Modeste  had  allowed  Francisque  to 
kiss  her  hand,  and  take  her  by  the  waist  to  mount  her. 
She  accepted  his  flowers  and  all  the  little  proofs  of 
tenderness  with  which  it  is  proper  to  surround  the 
lad}'  of  our  choice ;  she  even  worked  him  a  purse,  be- 
lieving in  such  ties,  —  strong  indeed  to  noble  souls,  but 
cobwebs  for  the  Gobenheims,  the  Vilquins,  and  the 
Althors. 

Some  time  during  the  spring  which  followed  the  re- 
moval of  Madame  Mignon  and  her  daughter  to  the 
Chalet,  Francisque  Althor  came  to  dine  with  the  Vil- 
quins. Happening  to  see  Modeste  over  the  wall  at  the 
foot  of  the  lawn,  he  turned  away  his  head.  Six  weeks 
later  he  married  the  eldest  Mademoiselle  Vilquin.  In 
this  way  Modeste,  young,  beautiful,  and  of  high  birth, 
learned  the  lesson  that  for  three  whole  months  of  her 
engagement  she  had  been  nothing  more  than  Made- 
moiselle Million.  Her  povert}^,  well  known  to  all,  be- 
came a  sentinel  defending  the  approaches  to  the  Chalet 
fully  as  well  as  the  prudence  of  the  Latournelles  or  the 
vigilance  of  Dumay.  The  talk  of  the  town  ran  for  a 
time  on  Mademoiselle  Mignon' s  position  only  to  insult 
her. 

' '  Poor  girl !  what  will  become  of  her  ?  —  an  old 
maid,  of  course." 


52  Modeste   Mignon. 

"  What  a  fate!  to  have  had  the  world  at  her  feet; 
to  have  had  the  chance  to  marry  Francisque  Althor,  — 
and  now,  nobod\r  willing  to  take  her !  " 

"After  a  life  of  luxury,  to  come  down  to  such 
poverty  —  " 

And  these  insults  were  not  uttered  in  secret  or  left 
to  Modeste's  imagination  ;  she  heard  them  spoken  more 
than  once  by  the  young  men  and  the  young  women  of 
Havre  as  they  walked  to  Ingouville,  and,  knowing  that 
Madame  Mignon  and  her  daughter  lived  at  the  Chalet, 
talked  of  them  as  they  passed  the  house.  Friends  of 
the  Vilquins  expressed  surprise  that  the  mother  and 
daughter  were  willing  to  live  on  among  the  scenes  of 
their  former  splendor.  From  her  open  window  behind 
the  closed  blinds  Modeste  sometimes  heard  such  inso- 
lence as  this :  — 

"  I  am  sure  I  can't  think  how  they  can  live 
there,"  some  one  would  say  as  he  paced  the  villa 
lawn,  —  perhaps  to  assist  Vilquin  in  getting  rid  of 
his  tenant. 

"  What  do  you  suppose  they  live  on?  they  have  n't 
any  means  of  earning  money." 

u  I  am  told  the  old  woman  has  gone  blind." 

"  Is  Mademoiselle  Mignon  still  pretty?  Dear  me, 
how  dashing  she  used  to  be!  Well,  she  hasn't  anj 
horses  now." 

Most  young  girls  on  hearing  these  spiteful  and  silly 
speeches,  born  of  an  envy  that  now  rushed,  peevish  and 
drivelling,  to  avenge  the  past,  would  have  felt  the  blood 
mount  to  their  foreheads ;  others  would  have  wept ; 
some  would  have  undergone  spasms  of  anger ;  but 
Modeste  smiled,  as  we  smile  at  the  theatre  while  watch- 


Modeste   Mignon.  53 

ing  the  actors.     Her  pride  could  not  descend  so  low  as 
the  level  of  such  speeches. 

The  other  event  was  more  serious  than  these  merce- 
nary meannesses.  Bettina  Caroline  died  in  the  arms 
of  her  younger  sister,  who  had  nursed  her  with  the 
devotion  of  girlhood,  and  the  curiosity  of  an  untainted 
imagination.  In  the  silence  of  long  nights  the  sisters 
exchanged  many  a  confidence.  With  what  dramatic 
interest  was  poor  Bettina  invested  in  the  eyes  of  the 
innocent  Modeste  ?  Bettina  knew  love  through  sorrow 
only,  and  she  was  dying  of  it.  Among  young  girls 
every  man,  scoundrel  though  he  be,  is  still  a  lover. 
Passion  is  the  one  thing  absolutely  real  in  the  things 
of  life,  and  it  insists  on  its  supremacy.  Charles 
d'Estourny,  gambler,  criminal,  and  debauchee,  remained 
in  the  memory  of  the  sisters,  the  elegant  Parisian  of 
the  fetes  of  Havre,  the  admired  of  the  womenkind. 
Bettina  believed  she  had  carried  him  off  from  the  co- 
quettish Madame  Vilquin,  and  to  Modeste  he  was  her 
sister's  happy  lover.  Such  adoration  in  young  girls  is  » 
stronger  than  all  social  condemnations.  To  Bettina's  ' 
thinking,  justic^had  be^n^leceived  ;  if  not,  how  could 
it  have  sentenced  a  man  who  had  loved  her  for  six 
months  ?  —  loved  her  to  distraction  in  the  hidden  retreat 
to  which  he  had  taken  her,  —  that  he  might,  we  majr 
add,  be  at  liberty  to  go  his  own  way.  Thus  the  dying 
girl  inoculated  her  sister  with  love.  Together  they 
talked  of  the  great  drama  which  imagination  enhances ;  ' 
and  Bettina  carried  with  her  to  the  grave  her  sister's 
ignorance,  leaving  her,  if  not  informed,  at  least  thirst- 
ing for  information. 

Nevertheless,  remorse  had  set  its  fangs  too  sharply 


54  Modeste   Mignon. 

in  Bettina's  heart  not  to  force  her  to  warn  her  sister. 
In  the  midst  of  her  own  confessions  she  had  preached 
duty  and  implicit  obedience  to  Modeste.  On  the  even- 
ing of  her  death  she  implored  her  to  remember  the 
tears  that  soaked  her  pillow,  and  not  to  imitate  a  con- 
duct which  even  suffering  could  not  expiate.  Bettina 
accused  herself  of  bringing  a  curse  upon  the  family, 
and  died  in  despair  at  being  unable  to  obtain  her 
father's  pardon.  Notwithstanding  the  consolations 
which  the  ministers  of  religion,  touched  by  her  repent- 
ance, freely  gave  her,  she  cried  in  heartrending  tones 
with  her  latest  breath:  "O  father!  father!"  "Never 
give  your  heart  without  your  hand,"  she  said  to  Modeste 
an  hour  before  she  died ;  ' i  and  above  all,  accept  no 
attentions  from  any  man  without  telling  everj'thing  to 
papa  and  mamma." 

These  words,  so  earnest  in  their  practical  meaning, 
uttered  in  the  hour  of  death,  had  more  effect  upon 
Modeste  than  if  Bettina  had  exacted  a  solemn  oath. 
The  dying  girl,  farseeing  as  a  prophet,  drew  from  be- 
neath her  pillow  a  ring  which  she  had  sent  by  her  faith- 
ful maid,  Franchise  Cochet,  to  be  engraved  in  Havre 
with  these  words,  "  Think  of  Bettina,  1827,"  and 
placed  it  on  her  sister's  finger,  begging  her  to  keep  it 
there  until  she  married.  Thus  there  had  been  between 
these  two  young  girls  a  strange  commingling  of  bitter 
remorse  and  the  artless  visions  of  a  fleeting  spring-time 
too  early  blighted  by  the  keen  north  wind  of  desertion ; 
yet  all  their  tears,  regrets,  and  memories  were  alwaj's 
subordinate  to  their  horror  of  evil. 

Nevertheless,  this  drama  of  a  poor  seduced  sister 
returning  to  die  under  a  roof  of  elegant  poverty,  the 


Modeste   Mignon.  55 

failure  of  her  father,  the  baseness  of  her  betrothed,  the 
blindness  of  her  mother  caused  by  grief,  had  touched 
the  surface  only  of  Modeste's  life,  by  which  alone  the 
Dumays  and  the  Latournelles  judged  her ;  for  no  devo- 
tion of  friends  can  take  the  place  of  a  mother's  eye.  The 
monotonous  life  in  the  dainty  little  Chalet,  surrounded 
by  the  choice  flowers  which  Dumay  cultivated;  the 
family  customs,  as  regular  as  clock-work,  the  provincial 
decorum,  the  games  at  whist  while  the  mother  knitted 
and  the  daughter  sewed,  the  silence,  broken  only  by 
the  roar  of  the  sea  in  the  equinoctial  storms,  —  all  this 
monastic  tranquillity  did  in  fact  hide  an  inner  and 
tumultuous  life,  the  life  of  ideas,  the  life  of  the  spirit- 
ual being.  We  sometimes  wonder  how  it  is  possible 
for  young  girls  to  do  wrong ;  but  such  as  do  so  have  no 
blind  mother  to  send  her  plummet  line  of  intuition  to 
the  depths  of  the  subterranean  fancies  of  a  virgin  heart. 
The  Duma3^s  slept  when  Modeste  opened  her  window, 
as  it  were  to  watch  for  the  passing  of  a  man,  — the  man 
of  her  dreams,  the  expected  knight  who  was  to  mount 
her  behind  him  and  ride  away  under  the  fire  of  Dummy's 
pistols. 

During  the  depression  caused  by  her  sister's  death 
Modeste  flung  herself  into  the  practice  of  reading,  until 
her  mind  became  sodden  in  it.  Born  to  the  use  of  two 
languages,  she  could  speak  and  read  German  quite  as 
well  as  French ;  she  had  also,  together  with  her  sister, 
learned  English  from  Madame  Dumay.  Being  very 
little  overlooked  in  the  matter  of  reading  by  the  people 
about  her,  who  had  no  literary  knowledge,  Modeste  fed 
her  soul  on  the  modern  masterpieces  of  three  literatures, 
English,  French,  and  German.     Lord  Byron,  Goethe, 


56  Modeste    Mignon. 

Schiller,  Walter  Scott,  Hugo,  Lamartine,  Crabbe,  Moore, 
the  great  works  of  the  17th  and  18th  centuries,  his- 
tory, drama,  and  fiction,  from  Astrsea  to  Manon  Les- 
caut,  from  Montaigne's  Essays  to  Diderot,  from  the 
Fabliaux  to  the  Nouvelle  Helo'ise,  —  in  short,  the 
thought  of  three  lands  crowded  with  confused  images 
that  girlish  head,  august  in  its  cold  guilelessness,  its 
native  chastity,  but  from  which  there  sprang  full-armed, 
brilliant,  sincere,  and  strong,  an  overwhelming  admira- 
tion for  genius.  To  Modeste  a  new  book  was  an 
event ;  a  masterpiece  that  would  have  horrified  Madame 
Latournelle  made  her  happy,  —  equally  unhappy  if  the 
great  work  did  not  play  havoc  with  her  heart.  A 
lyric  instinct  bubbled  in  that  girlish  soul,  so  full  of  the 
beautiful  illusions  of  its  youth.  But  of  this  radiant 
existence  not  a  gleam  reached  the  surface  of  daily  life  ; 
it  escaped  the  ken  of  Dumay  and  his  wife  and  the 
Latournelles  ;  the  ears  of  the  blind  mother  alone  caught 
the  crackling  of  its  flame. 

The  profound  disdain  which  Modeste  now  conceived 
for  ordinary  men  gave  to  her  face  a  look  of  pride,  an 
inexpressible  untamed  shyness,  which  tempered  her 
Teutonic  simplicity,  and  accorded  well  with  a  pecu- 
liarity of  her  head.  The  hair  growing  in  a  point  above 
the  forehead  seemed  the  continuation  of  a  slight  line 
which  thought  had  already  furrowed  between  the  eye- 
brows, and  made  the  expression  of  untamability  per- 
haps a  shade  too  strong.  The  voice  of  this  charming 
child,  whom  her  father,  delighting  in  her  wit,  was  wont 
to  call  his  "  little  proverb  of  Solomon,"  had  acquired  a 
precious  flexibility  of  organ  through  the  practice  of 
three  languages.     This  advantage  was  still  further  en- 


Modeste   Mignon.  5? 

hanced  by  a  natural  bell-like  tone  both  sweet  and  fresh, 
which  touched  the  heart  as  delightfully  as  it  did  the  ear. 
If  the  mother  could  no  longer  see  the  signs  of  a  noble 
destiny  upon  her  daughter's  brow,  she  could  study  the 
transitions  of  her  soul's  development  in  the  accents  of 
that  voice  attuned  to  love. 


58  •  Modeste   Mignon. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

a  maiden's  first  romance. 

To  this  period  of  Modeste's  eager  rage  for  reading 
succeeded  the  exercise  of  a  strange  faculty  given  to 
vigorous  imaginations, — the  power,  namely,  of  making 
herself  an  actor  in  a  dream-existence  ;  of  representing 
to  her  own  mind  the  things  desired,  with  so  vivid  a  con- 
ception that  they  seemed  actually  to  attain  reality ;  in 
short,  to  enjoy  by  thought,  —  to  live  out  her  years  within 
her  mind ;  to  marry ;  to  grow  old ;  to  attend  her  own 
funeral  like  Charles  V. ;  to  play  within  herself  the  com- 
edy of  life  and,  if  need  be,  that  of  death.  Modeste 
was  indeed  playing,  but  all  alone,  the  comedy  of  Love. 
She  fancied  herself  adored  to  the  summit  of  her  wishes 
in  many  an  imagined  phase  of  social  life.  Sometimes 
as  the  heroine  of  a  dark  romance,  she  loved  the  execu- 
tioner, or  the  wretch  who  ended  his  days  upon  the 
scafTold,  or,  like  her  sister,  some  Parisian  youth  with- 
out a  penny,  whose  struggles  were  all  beneath  a  garret- 
roof.  Sometimes  she  was  Ninon,  scorning  men  amid 
continual  fetes ;  or  some  applauded  actress,  or  gay  ad- 
venturess, exhausting  in  her  own  behalf  the  luck  of  Gil 
Bias,  or  the  triumphs  of  Pasta,  Malibran,  and  Florine. 
Then,  weary  of  horrors  and  excitements,  she  returned 
to  actual  life.  She  married  a  notary,  she  ate  the  plain 
brown  bread  of  honest  every-day  life,  she  saw  herself  a 


Modeste   Mignon.  59 

Madame  Latournelle ;  she  accepted  a  painful  existence, 
she  bore  all  the  trials  of  a  struggle  with  fortune.  After 
that  she  went  back  to  the  romances :  she  was  loved  for 
her  beauty ;  a  son  of  a  peer  of  France,  an  eccentric, 
artistic  young  man,  divined  her  heart,  recognized  the 
star  which  the  genius  of  a  De  Stael  had  planted  on  her 
brow.  Her  father  returned,  possessing  millions.  With 
his  permission,  she  put  her  various  lovers  to  certain 
tests  (always  carefully  guarding  her  own  independence)  ; 
she  owned  a  magnificent  estate  and  castle,  servants, 
horses,  carriages,  the  choicest  of  everything  that  lux- 
ury could  bestow,  and  kept  her  suitors  uncertain  until 
she  was  forty  years  old,  at  which  age  she  made  her 
choice. 

This  edition  of  the  Arabian  Nights  in  a  single  copy 
lasted  nearly  a  year,  and  taught  Modeste  the  sense  of 
satiety  through  thought.  She  held  her  life  too  often 
in  her  hand,  she  said  to  herself  philosophically  and 
with  too  real  a  bitterness,  too  seriously,  and  too  often, 
U  Well,  what  is  it,  after  all?"  not  to  have  plunged  to 
her  waist  in  the  deep  disgust  which  all  men  of  genius 
feel  when  they  try  to  complete  by  intense  toil  the  work 
to  which  they  have  devoted  themselves.  Her  youth  and 
her  rich  nature  alone  kept  Modeste  at  this  period  of  her 
life  from  seeking  to  enter  a  cloister.  But  this  sense  of 
satiety  cast  her,  saturated  as  she  still  was  with  Catholic 
spirituality,  into  the  love  of  Good,  the  infinite  of  heaven. 
She  conceived  of  charity,  service  of  others,  as  the  true 
occupation  of  life ;  but  she  cowered  in  the  gloomy 
dreariness  of  finding  in  it  no  food  for  the  fancy  that 
lay  crouching  in  her  heart  like  an  insect  at  the  bottom 
of  a  calyx.     Meanwhile  she  sat  tranquilly  sewing  gar- 


60  Modeste  Mignon. 

ments  for  the  children  of  the  poor,  and  listening  ab- 
stractedly to  the  grumblings  of  Monsieur  Latournelle 
when  Dumay  held  the  thirteenth  card  or  drew  out  his 
last  trump. 

Her  religious  faith  drove  Modeste  for  a  time  into  a 
singular  track  of  thought.  She  imagined  that  if  she 
became  sinless  (speaking  ecclesiastically)  she  would 
attain  to  such  a  condition  of  sanctity  that  God  would 
hear  her  and  accomplish  her  desires.  "  Faith,"  she 
thought,  ' '  can  remove  mountains  ;  Christ  has  said  so. 
The  Saviour  led  his  apostle  upon  the  waters  of  the  lake 
Tiberias ;  and  I,  all  I  ask  of  God  is  a  husband^to  love 
me ;  that  is  easier  than  walking  upon  the  sea."  She 
fasted  through  the  next  Lent,  and  did  not  commit  a 
single  sin ;  then  she  said  to  herself  that  on  a  certain 
day  coming  out  of  church  she  should  meet  a  handsome 
young  man  who  was  worthy  of  her,  whom  her  mother 
would  accept,  and  who  would  fall  madly  in  love  with 
her.  When  the  day  came  on  which  she  had,  as  it 
were,  summoned  God  to  send  her  an  angel,  she  was 
persistently  followed  by  a  rather  disgusting  beggar ; 
moreover,  it  rained  heavily,  and  not  a  single  young  man 
was  in  the  streets.  On  another  occasion  she  went  to 
walk  on  the  jetty  to  see  the  English  travellers  land ; 
but  each  Englishman  had  an  Englishwoman,  nearly  as 
handsome  as  Modeste  herself,  who  saw  no  one  at  all  re- 
sembling a  wandering  Childe  Harold.  Tears  overcame 
her,  as  she  sat  down  like  Marius  on  the  ruins  of  her 
imagination.  But  on  the  day  when  she  subpoenaed  God 
for  the  third  time  she  firmly  believed  that  the  Elect 
of  her  dreams  was  within  the  church,  hiding,  perhaps 
out  of  delicac}*,  behind  one  of  the  pillars,  round   all  of 


Modeste   Mignon.  61 

which  she  dragged  Madame  Latournelle  on  a  tour  of 
inspection.  After  this  failure,  she  deposed  the  Deity 
from  omnipotence.  Man}'  were  her  conversations  with 
the  imaginary  lover,  for  whom  she  invented  questions 
and  answers,  bestowing  upon  him  a  great  deal  of  wit 
and  intelligence. 

The  high  ambitions  of  her  heart  hidden  within  these 
romances  were  the  real  explanation  of  the  prudent 
conduct  which  the  good  people  who  watched  over 
Modeste  so  much  admired ;  they  might  have  brought 
her  any  number  of  young  Althors  or  Vilquins,  and  she 
would  never  have  stooped  to  such  clowns.  She  wanted, 
purely  and  simply,  a  man  of  genius,  —  talent  she  cared 
little  for ;  just  as  a  lawyer  is  of  no  account  to  a  girl  who 
aims  for  an  ambassador.  Her  only  desire  for  wealth 
was  to  cast  it  at  the  feet  of  her  idol.  Indeed,  the 
golden  background  of  these  visions  was  far  less  rich 
than  the  treasury  of  her  own  heart,  filled  with  womanly 
delicacy ;  for  its  dominant  desire  was  to  make  some 
Tasso,  some  Milton,  a  Jean- Jacques  Rousseau,  a  Murat, 
a  Christopher  Columbus  happ}^. 

Commonplace  miseries  did  not  seriously  touch 'this 
youthful  soul,  who  longed  to  extinguish  the  fires  of  the 
martyrs  ignored  and  rejected  in  their  own  day.  Some- 
times she  imagined  balms  of  Gilead,  soothing  melo- 
dies which  might  have  allayed  the  savage  misanthropy 
of  Rousseau.  Or  she  fancied  herself  the  wife  of  Lord 
Byron  ;  guessing  intuitively  his  contempt  for  the  real,  she 
made  herself  as  fantastic  as  the  poetry  of  Manfred,  and 
provided  for  his  scepticism  by  making  him  a  Catholic. 
Modeste  attributed  Moliere's  melancholy  to  the  women 
of  the  seventeenth  century,     "  Why  is  there  not  some 


62  Modeste  Mignon. 

one  woman,"  she  asked  herself,  "  loving,  beautiful,  and 
rich,  ready  to  stand  beside  each  man  of  genius  and  be 
his  slave,  like  Lara,  the  mysterious  page?"  She  had, 
as  the  reader  perceives,  fully  understood  il  pianto, 
which  the  English  poet  chanted  by  the  mouth  of  his 
Gulnare.  Modeste  greatly  admired  the  behavior  of  the 
3'oung  Englishwoman  who  offered  herself  to  Crebillon, 
the  son,  who  married  her.  The  storj^  of  Sterne  and 
Eliza  Draper  was  her  life  and  her  happiness  for  several 
months.  She  made  herself  ideally  the  heroine  of  a  like 
romance,  and  many  a  time  she  rehearsed  in  imagina- 
tion the  sublime  role  of  Eliza.  The  sensibility  so 
charmingly  expressed  in  that  delightful  correspondence 
filled  her  eyes  with  tears  which,  it  is  said,  were  lacking 
in  those  of  the  wittiest  of  English  writers. 

Modeste  existed  for  some  time  on  a  comprehension, 
not  only  of  the  works,  but  of  the  characters  of  her  favorite 
authors,  —  Goldsmith,  the  author  of  Obermann,  Charles 
Nodier,  Maturin.  The  poorest  and  the  most  suffering 
among  them  were  her  deities ;  she  guessed  their  trials, 
initiated  herself  into  a  destitution  where  the  thoughts 
of  genius  brooded,  and  poured  upon  it  the  treasures  of 
her  heart ;  she  fancied  herself  the  giver  of  material 
comfort  to  these  great  men,  martyrs  to  their  own  fac- 
ulty. This  noble  compassion,  this  intuition  of  the 
struggles  of  toilers,  this  worship  of  genius,  are  among 
the  choicest  perceptions  that  flutter  through  the  souls 
of  women.  The}'  are,  in  the  first  place,  a  secret  be- 
tween the  woman  and  God,  for  the}'  are  hidden ;  in 
them  there  is  nothing  striking,  nothing  that  gratifies 
the  vanity,  —  that  powerful  auxiliary  to  all  action 
among  the  French. 


Modeste   Mignon.  63 

Oat  of  this  third  period  of  the  development  of  her 
ideas,  there  came  to  Modeste  a  passionate  desire  to 
penetrate  to  the  heart  of  one  of  these  abnormal  beings  ; 
to  understand  the  working  of  the  thoughts  and  the  hid- 
den griefs  of  genius,  —  to  know  not  only  what  it  wanted 
but  what  it  was.  At  the  period  when  this  story  begins, 
these  vagaries  of  fancy,  these  excursions  of  her  soul 
into  the  void,  these  feelers  put  forth  into  the  darkness 
of  the  future,  the  impatience  of  an  ungiven  love  to 
find  its  goal,  the  nobility  of  all  her  thoughts  of  life, 
the  decision  of  her  mind  to  suffer  in  a  sphere  of  higher 
things  rather  than  flounder  in  the  marshes  of  provincial 
life  like  her  mother,  the  pledge  she  had  made  to  herself 
never  to  fail  in  conduct,  but  to  respect  her  father's 
hearth  and  bring  it  happiness,  —  all  this  world  of  feel- 
ing and  sentiment  had  lately  come  to  a  climax  and 
taken  shape.  J  Modeste  wished  to  be  the  friend  and 
companion  of  a  poet,  an  artist,  a  man  in  some  way 
superior  to  the  crowd  of  men.  But  she  intended  to  I 
choose  him,  —  not  to  give  him  her  heart,  her  life,  her 
infinite  tenderness  freed  from  the  trammels  of  passion,  j 
until  she  had  carefully  and  deeply  studied  him/~] 

She  began  this  pretty  romance  by  simply  enjoying  it. 
Profound  tranquillity  settled  down  upon  her  soul.  Her 
cheeks  took  on  a  soft  color  ;  and  she  became  the  beauti- 
ful and  noble  image  of  Germany,  such  as  we  have  lately 
seen  her,  the  glory  of  the  Chalet,  the  pride  of  Madame 
Latournelle  and  the  Dumays.  Modeste  was  living  a 
double  existence.  She  performed  with  humble,  loving 
care  all  the  minute  duties  of  the  homely  life  at  the 
Chalet,  using  them  as  a  rein  to  guide  the  poetr}^  of 
her   ideal  life,   like  the  Carthusian   monks  who  labor 


64  Modeste   31ignon. 

methodicall}'  on  material  things  to  leave  their  souls  the 
freer  to  develop  in  pra}Ter.  All  great  minds  have  bound 
themselves  to  some  form  of  mechanical  toil  to  obtain 
greater  mastery  of  thought.  Spinosa  ground  glasses  for 
spectacles ;  Bayle  counted  the  tiles  on  the  roof ;  Mon- 
tesquieu gardened.  The  body  being  thus  subdued,  the 
soul  could  spread  its  wings  in  all  security. 

Madame  Mignon,  reading  her  daughter's  soul,  was 
therefore  right.  Modeste  loved  ;  she  loved  with  that 
rare  platonic  love,  so  little  understood,  the  first  illusion 
of  a  young  girl,  the  most  delicate  of  all  sentiments,  a 
very  dainty  of  the  heart.  She  drank  deep  draughts 
from  the  chalice  of  the  unknown,  the  vague,  the  vision- 
ary. She  admired  the  blue  plumage  of  the  bird  that 
sings  afar  in  the  paradise  of  young  girls,  which  no  hand 
can  touch,  no  gun  can  cover,  as  it  flits  across  the  sight ; 
she  loved  those  magic  colors,  like  sparkling  jewels  daz- 
zling to  the  eye,  which  youth  can  see,  and  never  sees 
again  when  Reality,  the  hideous  hag,  appears  with  wit- 
nesses accompanied  by  the  maj-or.  To  live  the  very 
poetry  of  love  and  not  to  see  the  lover  —  ah,  what 
sweet  intoxication  !  what  visionary  rapture !  a  chimera 
with  flowing  mane  and  outspread  wings ! 

The  following  is  the  puerile  and  even  silly  event  which 
decided  the  future  life  of  this  young  girl. 

Modeste  happened  to  see  in  a  bookseller's  window  a 
lithographic  portrait  of  one  of  her  favorites,  Canalis. 
We  all  know  what  lies  such  pictures  tell,  —  being  as  they 
are  the  result  of  a  shameless  speculation,  which  seizes 
upon  the  personality  of  celebrated  individuals  as  if  their 
faces  were  public  property. 

In  this  instance  Canalis,  sketched  in  a  Byronic  pose, 


Modeste   Mignon.  65 

was  offering  to  public  admiration  his  dark  locks  floating 
in  the  breeze,  a  bare  throat,  and  the  unfathomable  brow 
which  every  bard  ought  to  possess.  Victor  Hugo's 
forehead  will  make  more  persons  shave  their  heads  than 
the  number  of  incipient  marshals  ever  killed  by  the 
glory  of  Napoleon.  This  portrait  of  Canalis  (poetic 
through  mercantile  necessity)  caught  Modes  te's  eye. 
The  day  on  which  it  caught  her  eye  one  of  Arthez's 
best  books  happened  to  be  published.  We  are  com- 
pelled to  admit,  though  it  may  be  to  Modeste's  injury, 
that  she  hesitated  long  between  the  illustrious  poet  and 
the  illustrious  prose- writer.  Which  of  these  celebrated 
men  was  free  ?  —  that  was  the  question. 

Modeste  began  by  securing  the  co-operation  of  Fran- 
^oise  Cochet,  a  maid  taken  from  Havre  and  brought 
bacTTligaTn  by  poor  Bettina,  whom  Madame  Mignon 
and  Madame  Dumay  now  employed  by  the  day,  and 
who  lived  in  Havre.  Modeste  took  her  to  her  own 
room  and  assured  her  that  she  would  never  cause  her 
parents  any  grief,  never  pass  the  bounds  of  a  young 
girPs  propriety,  and  that  as  to  Francpise  herself  she 
should  be  well  provided  for  after  the  return  of  Mon- 
sieur Mignon,  on  condition  that  she  would  do  a  certain 
service  and  keep  it  an  inviolable  secret.  What  was  it? 
Why,  a  nothing — perfectly  innocent.  All  that  Mo-  I 
deste  wanted  of  her  accomplice  was  to  put  certain  letters 
into  the  post  at  Havre  and  to  bring  some  back  which 
would  be  directed  to  herself,  Francpise  Cochet.  The 
treaty  concluded,  Modeste  wrote  a  polite  note  to  Dau- 
riat,  publisher  of  the  poems  of  Canalis,  asking,  in  the 
interest  of  that  great  poet,  for  some  particulars  about 
him,  among  others  if  he  were  married.     She  requested 

5 


66  Modeste   Mignon. 

the  publisher  to  address  his  answer    to  Mademoiselle 
Franchise,  poste  restante,  Havre. 

Dauriat,  incapable  of  taking  the  epistle  seriously, 
wrote  a  reply  in  presence  of  four  or  five  journalists  who 
happened  to  be  in  his  office  at  the  time,  each  of  whom 
added  his  particular  stroke  of  wit  to  the  production. 

Mademoiselle,  —  Canalis  (Baron  of),  Constant  Cyr 
Melchior,  member  of  the  French  Academy,  born  in  1800, 
at  Canalis  (Correze),  five  feet  four  inches  in  height,  of  good 
standing,  vaccinated,  spotless  birth,  has  given  a  substitute 
to  the  conscription,  enjoys  perfect  health,  owns  a  small  patri- 
monial estate  in  the  Correze,  and  wishes  to  marry,  but  the 
lady  must  be  rich. 

He  beareth  per  pale,  gules  an  axe  or,  sable  three  escallops 
argent,  surmounted  by  a  baron's  coronet  ;  supporters,  two 
larches,  vert.  Motto  :  Or  et  fer  (no  allusion  to  Ophir  or 
auriferous). 

The  original  Canalis,  who  went  to  the  Holy  Land  with  the 
First  Crusade,  is  cited  in  the  chronicles  of  Auvergne  as  being 
armed  with  an  axe  on  account  of  the  family  indigence,  which 
to  this  day  weighs  heavily  on  the  race.  This  noble  baron, 
famous  for  discomfiting  a  vast  number  of  infidels,  died,  with- 
out or  or  fer,  as  naked  as  a  worm,  near  Jerusalem,  on  the 
plains  of  Ascalon,  ambulances  not  being  then  invented. 

The  chateau  of  Canalis  (the  domain  yields  a  few  chest- 
nuts) consists  of  two  dismantled  towers,  united  by  a  piece  of 
wall  covered  by  a  fine  ivy,  and  is  taxed  at  twenty-two  francs. 

The  undersigned  (publisher)  calls  attention  to  the  fact 
that  he  pays  ten  thousand  francs  for  every  volume  of  poetry 
written  by  Monsieur  de  Canalis,  who  does  not  give  his  shells, 
or  his  nuts  either,  for  nothing. 

The  chanticleer  of  the  Correze  lives  in  the  rue  de  Paradis- 
Poissoniere,  number  29,  which  is  a  highly  suitable  location 
for  a  poet  of  the  angelic  school.    Letters  must  be  post-paid. 


Modeste   Mignon.  67 

Noble  dames  of  the  faubourg  Saint-Germain  are  said  to 
take  the  path  to  Paradise  and  protect  its  god.  The  king, 
Charles  X.,  thinks  so  highly  of  this  great  poet  as  to  believe 
him  capable  of  governing  the  country ;  he  has  lately  made 
him  officer  of  the  Legion  of  honor,  and  (what  pays  him  bet- 
ter) president  of  the  court  of  Claims  at  the  foreign  office. 
These  functions  do  not  hinder  this  great  genius  from  drawing 
an  annuity  out  of  the  fund  for  the  encouragement  of  the  arts 
and  belles  lettres.  » 

The  last  edition  of  the  works  of  Canalis,  printed  on 
vellum,  royal  8vo,  from  the  press  of  Didot,  with  illustrations 
by  Bixiou,  Joseph  Bridau,  Schinner,  Sommervieux,  etc.,  is 
in  five  volumes,  price,  nine  francs  post-paid.' ' 

This  letter  fell  like  a  cobble-stone  on  a  tulip.  A 
poet,  secretary  of  claims,  getting  a  stipend  in  a  pub- 
lic office,  drawing  an  annuity,  seeking  a  decoration, 
adored  by  the  women  of  the  faubourg  Saint-Germain  — 
was  that  the  muddy  minstrel  lingering  along  the  qua}  s, 
sad,  dreamy,  worn  with  toil,  and  re-entering  his  garret 
fraught  with  poetry  ?  However,  Modeste  perceived  the 
irony  of  the  envious  bookseller,  who  dared  to  say,  "  I 
invented  Canalis  ;  I  made  Nathan  !  "  Besides,  she  re- 
read her  hero's  poems, — verses  extremely  seductive, 
insincere,  and  hypocritical,  wrhich  require  a  word  of 
analysis,  were  it  only  to  explain  her  infatuation. 

Canalis  may  be  distinguished  from  Lamartine,  chief 
of  the  angelic  school,  b}^  a  wheedling  tone  like  that  of 
a  sick-nurse,  a  treacherous  sweetness,  and  a  delightful 
correctness  of  diction.  If  the  chief  with  his  strident 
cry  is  an  eagle,  Canalis,  rose  and  white,  is  a  flamingo. 
In  him  women  find  the  friend  they  seek,  their  interpre- 
ter, a  being  who  understands  them,  who  explains  them 
to  themselves,  and  a  safe  confidant.    The  wide  margin* 


68  Modeste   Mignon. 

given  by  Didot  to  the  last  edition  were  crowded  with 
Modeste's  pencilled  sentiments,  expressing  her  sym- 
pathy with  this  tender  and  dreamy  spirit.  Canalis  does 
not  possess  the  gift  of  life ;  he  cannot  breathe  exist- 
ence into  his  creations ;  but  he  knows  how  to  calm 
vague  sufferings  like  those  which  assailed  Modeste. 
He  speaks  to  young  girls  in  their  own  language ;  he 
can  allay  the  anguish  of  a  bleeding  wound  and  lull  the 
moans,  even  the  sobs  of  woe.  His  gift  lies  not  in  stirring 
words,  nor  in  the  remedy  of  strong  emotions,  he  con- 
tents himself  with  saying  in  harmonious  tones  which 
compel  belief,  u  I  suffer  with  you;  I  understand  you  ; 
come  with  me ;  let  us  weep  together  beside  the  brook, 
beneath  the  willows."  And  they  follow  him!  They 
listen  to  his  empty  and  sonorous  poetry  like  infants 
to  a  nurse's  lullab}'.  Canalis,  like  Nodier,  enchants  the 
reader  b}^  an  artlessness  which  is  genuine  in  the  prose 
writer  and  artificial  in  the  poet,  b}r  his  tact,  his  smile, 
the  shedding  of  his  rose-leaves,  in  short  by  his  infantile 
philosophy.  He  imitates  so  well  the  language  of  our 
early  youth  that  he  leads  us  back  to  the  prairie-land  of 
our  illusions.  We  can  be  pitiless  to  the  eagles,  re- 
quiring from  them  the  quality  of  the  diamond,  incor- 
ruptible perfection ;  but  as  for  Canalis,  we  take  him 
for  what  he  is  and  let  the  rest  go.  He  seems  a  good 
fellow ;  the  affectations  of  the  angelic  school  have  an- 
swered his  purpose  and  succeeded,  just  as  a  woman 
succeeds  when  she  plays  the  ingenue  cleverly,  and 
simulates  surprise,  youth,  innocence  betrayed,  in  short, 
the  wounded  angel. 

Modeste,  recovering  her  first  impressions,  renewed  her 
confidence  in  that  soul,  in  that  countenance  as  ravish* 


To  Mo 

sieur,  I  have  wia. 
you  guess  why,  — ■  to  U 
genius.     Yes,  I  feel  the  need 
admiration  of  a  poor  country  gil 
corner,  whose  only  happiness  is  to  reaa 
I  have  read  Rene,  and  I  come  to  }7ou.     Sactru 
to  rever}T.     How  many  other  women  are  sending  y] 
the  homage  of  their  secret  thoughts?     What  chance 
have  I  for  notice  among  so  many?     This  paper,  filled 
with  my  soul,  —  can  it  be  more  to  you  than  the  per- 
fumed letters  which  already  beset  you.     I  come  to  you 
with  less  grace  than  others,  for  I  wish  to  remain  un- 
known and  yet  to  receive  your  entire  confidence  —  as 
though  }Tou  had  long  known  me. 

Answer  my  letter  and  be.  friendly  with  me.  I  can- 
not promise  to  make  myself  known  to  you,  though  I 
do  not  positively  say  I  will  not  some  day  do  so. 

What  shall  I  add?  Bead  between  the  lines  of  this 
letter,  monsieur,  the  great  effort  which  I  am  making : 
permit  me  to  offer  you  my  hand, — that  of  a  friend, 
ah !  a  true  friend, 

Your  servant,  O.  d'Este  M. 

P.  S.  —  If  you  do  me  the  favor  to  answer  this  let- 
ter address  your  reply,  if  you  please,  to  Mademoiselle 
F.  Cochet,  poste  restante,  Havre. 


^xC   SCHOOL. 

mantle  or  otherwise,  can  imagine 
..  which  Modeste  lived  for  the  next  few 
^  air  was  full  of  tongues  of  fire.     The  trees 
.  nke  a  plumage.     She  was  not  conscious  of  a  body  ; 
she  hovered  in  space,  the  earth  melted  away  under  her 
feet.     Full  of  admiration  for  the  post-office,   she  fol- 
lowed her  little  sheet  of  paper  on  its  way;  she  was 
happy,  as  we  all  are  happy  at  twenty  years  of  age,  in 
the  first  exercise  of  our  will.     She  was  possessed,  as  in 
the  middle  ages.     She  made  pictures  in  her  mind  of  the 
poet's  abode,  of  his  study ;  she  saw  him  unsealing  her 
letter ;  and  then  followed  myriads  of  suppositions. 

After  sketching  the  poetry  we  cannot  do  less  than 
give  the  profile  of  the  poet.  Canalis  is  a  short,  spare 
man,  with  an  air  of  good-breeding,  a  dark-complexioned, 
moon-shaped  face,  and  a  rather  mean  head  like  that 
[Tof  a  man  who  has  more  vanit}r  than  pride.  He  loves 
luxury,  rank,  and  splendor.  Money  is  of  more  impor- 
j  tance  to  him  than  to  most  men.  Proud  of  his  birth, 
even  more  than  of  his  talent,  he  destroys  the  value  of 
his  ancestors  by  making  too  much  of  them  in  the  pres- 
ent day,  —  after  all,  the  Canalis  are  not  Navarreins, 
nor  Cadignans,  nor  Grandlieus.  Nature,  however, 
helps  him  out  in  his  pretensions.     He  has  those  eyes 


Modeste   Mignon.  71 

of  Eastern  effulgence  which  we  demand  in  a  poet,  a 
delicate  charm  of  manner,  and  a  vibrant  voice ;  yet 
a  taint  of  natural  charlatanism  destroys  the  effect  of  \ 
nearly  all  these  advantages ;  he  is  a  born  comedian. 
If  he  puts  forward  his  well-shaped  foot,  it  is  because 
the  attitude  has  become  a  habit ;  if  he  uses  exclama- 
tory terms  they  are  a  part  of  himself ;  if  he  poses  with 
high  dramatic  action  he  has  made  that  deportment  his 
second  nature.  Such  defects  as  these  are  not  incom- 
patible with  a  general  benevolence  and  a  certain  quality 
of  errant  and  purely  ideal  chivalry,  which  distinguishes 
the  paladin  from  the  knight.  Canalis  has  not  devotion 
enough  for  a  Don  Quixote,  but  he  has  too  much  eleva- 
tion of  thought  not  to  put  himself  on  the  nobler  side  of 
questions  and  things.  His  poetry,  which  takes  the 
town  by  storm  on  all  profitable  occasions,  really  in- 
jures the  man  as  a  poet ;  for  he  is  not  without  mind, 
but  his  talent  prevents  him  from  developing  it ;  he  is 
overweighted  by  his  reputation,  and  is  alwa}^s  aiming  to 
make  himself  appear  greater  than  he  has  the  credit  of 
being.  Thus,  as  often  happens,  the  man  is  entirety 
out  of  keeping  with  the  products  of  his  thought.  The 
author  of  these  naive,  caressing,  tender  little  lyrics, 
these  calm  idyls  pure  and  cold  as  the  surface  of  a  lake, 
these  verses  so  essentially  feminine,  is  an  ambitious 
little  creature  in  a  tightly  buttoned  frock-coat,  with  the 
air  of  a  diplomat  seeking  political  influence,  smelling  of 
the  musk  of  aristocracy,  full  of  pretension,  thirsting  for 
money,  already  spoiled  by  success  in  two  directions, 
and  wearing  the  double  wreath  of  myrtle  and  of  laurel. 
A  government  situation  worth  eight  thousand  francs, 
three  thousand  francs'  annuity  from  the  literary  fund, 


72  Modeste   Mignon. 

two  thousand  from  the  Academy,  three  thousand  more 
from  the  paternal  estate  (less  the  taxes  and  the  cost  of 
keeping  it  in  order) ,  —  a  total  fixed  income  of  fifteen 
thousand  francs,  plus  the  ten  thousand  brought  in,  one 
year  with  another,  by  his  poetry ;  in  all  twenty-five 
thousand  francs,  —  this  for  Modeste's  hero  was  so  pre- 
carious and  insufficient  an  income  that  he  usually  spent 
from  five  to  six  thousand  francs  more  ever}r  year ;  but 
the  king's  privy  purse  and  the  secret  funds  of  the 
foreign  office  had  hitherto  supplied  the  deficit.  He 
wrote  a  hymn  for  the  king's  coronation  which  earned 
him  a  whole  silver  service,  —  having  refused  a  sum  of 
money  on  the  ground  that  a  Canalis  owed  his  duty  to 
the  sovereign. 

But  about  this  time  Canalis  had,  as  the  journalists 
say,  exhausted  his  budget.  He  felt  himself  unable  to 
invent  any  new  form  of  poetry ;  his  lyre  did  not  have 
seven  strings,  it  had  one ;  and  having  played  on  that 
one  string  so  long,  the  public  allowed  him  no  other  al- 
ternative than  to  hang  himself  with  it,  or  to  hold  his 
tongue.  De  Marsa}',  who  did  not  like  Canalis,  made  a 
remark  whose  poisoned  shaft  touched  the  poet  to  the 
quick  of  his  vanity.  "  Canalis,"  he  said,  "  always  re- 
minds me  of  that  brave  man  whom  Frederic  the  Great 
called  up  and  commended  after  a  battle  because  his 
trumpet  had  never  ceased  tooting  its  one  little  tune." 
Canalis's  ambition  was  to  enter  political  life,  and  he 
made  capital  of  a  journey  he  had  taken  to  Madrid  as 
secretary  to  the  embassy  of  the  Due  de  Chaulieu,  though 
it  was  really  made,  according  to  Parisian  gossip,  in  the 
capacity  of  u  attache  to  the  duchess."  How  many 
times  a  sarcasm  or  a  single  speech  has  decided  the 


Modeste    Mignon.  73 

whole  course  of  a  man's  life.  Colla,  the  late  president 
of  the  Cisalpine  republic,  and  the  best  lawyer  in  Pied- 
mont, was  told  by  a  friend  when  he  was  forty  years  of 
age  that  he  knew  nothing  of  botany.  He  was  piqued, 
became  a  second  Jussieu,  cultivated  flowers,  and  com- 
piled and  published  "  The  Flora  of  Piedmont,"  in  Latin, 
a  labor  of  ten  years.  u  I  '11  master  De  Marsay  some  of 
these  days!"  thought  the  crushed  poet;  ."after  all. 
Canning  and  Chateaubriand  are  both  in  politics." 

Canalis  would  gladly  have  brought  forth  some  great 
political  poem,  but  he  was  afraid  of  the  French  press, 
whose  criticisms  are  savage  upon  any  writer  who  takes 
four  alexandrines  to  express  one  idea.  Of  all  the  poets 
of  our  day  only  three,  Hugo,  Theophile  Gautier,  and 
De  Vigny,  have  been  able  to  win  the  double  glory  of 
poet  and  prose-writer,  like  Racine  and  Voltaire,  Mo- 
liere,  and  Rabelais,  —  a  rare  distinction  in  the  literature 
of  France,  which  ought  to  give  a  man  a  right  to  the 
crowning  title  of  poet. 

So  then,  the  bard  of  the  faubourg  Saint-Germain 
was  doing  a  wise  thing  in  trying  to  house  his  little 
chariot  under  the  protecting  roof  of  the  present  gov- 
ernment. When  he  became  president  of  the  court  of 
Claims  at  the  foreign  office,  he  stood  in  need  of  a  sec- 
retary, —  a  friend  who  could  take  his  place  in  various 
ways ;  cook  up  his  interests  with  publishers,  see  to  his 
glory  in  the  newspapers,  help  him  if  need  be  in  politics, 
—  in  short,  a  cat's-paw  and  satellite.  In  Paris  many 
men  of  celebrity  in  art,  science,  and  literature  have  one 
or  more  trainbearers,  captains  of  the  guard,  chamber- 
lains as  it  were,  who  live  in  the  sunshine  of  their  pres- 
ence, —  aides-de-camp  intrusted  with  delicate  missions, 


74  Modeste   Mignon. 

allowing  themselves  to  be  compromised  if  necessary ; 
workers  round  the  pedestal  of  the  idol ;  not  exactly  his 
servants,  nor  yet  his  equals ;  bold  in  his  defence,  first 
in  the  breach,  covering  all  retreats,  bus}T  with  his  busi- 
ness, and  devoted  to  him  just  so  long  as  their  illusions 
last,  or  until  the  moment  when  they  have  got  all  they 
wanted.  Some  of  these  satellites  perceive  the  ingrati- 
tude of  their  great  man  ;  others  feel  that  they  are  simply 
made  tools  of;  many  weary  of  the  life  ;  very  few  remain 
contented  with  that  sweet  equality  of  feeling  and  sen- 
timent which  is  the  only  reward  that  should  be  looked 
for  in  an  intimacy  with  a  superior  man,  —  a  reward  that 
contented  Ali  when  Mohammed  raised  him  to  himself. 

Many  of  these  men,  misled  by  vanity,  think  them- 
selves quite  as  capable  as  their  patron.  Pure  devotion, 
such  as  Modeste  conceived  it,  without  rnone}'  and  with- 
out price,  and  more  especially  without  hope,  is  rare. 
Nevertheless  there  are  Mennevals  to  be  found,  more 
perhaps  in  Paris  than  elsewhere,  men  who  value  a  life 
in  the  background  with  its  peaceful  toil :  these  are  the 
wandering  Benedictines  of  our  social  world,  which  offers 
them  no  other  monastery.  These  brave,  meek  hearts 
live,  by  their  actions  and  in  their  hidden  lives,  the 
poetry  that  poets  utter.  They  are  poets  themselves  in 
soul,  in  tenderness,  in  their  lonety  vigils  and  medita- 
tions, —  as  truly  poets  as  others  of  the  name  on  paper, 
who  fatten  in  the  fields  of  literature  at  so  much  a  verse  ; 
like  Lord  Byron,  like  all  who  live,  alas,  b}^  ink,  the 
Hippocrene  water  of  to-day,  for  want  of  a  better. 

Attracted  by  the  fame  of  Canalis,  also  by  the  pros- 
pect of  political  interest,  and  advised  thereto  by  Ma- 
dame d'Espard,  who  acted  in  the  matter  for  the  Duchesse 


Modeste   Mignon.  75 

de  Chaulieu,  a  young  lawyer  of  the  court  of  Claims  be- 
came secretary  and  confidential  friend  of  the  poet,  who 
welcomed  and  petted  him  very  much  as  a  broker  car- 
esses his  first  dabbler  in  the  funds.  The  beginning  of 
this  companionship  bore  a  very  fair  resemblance  to 
friendship.  The  young  man  had  already  held  the  same 
relation  to  a  minister,  who  went  out  of  office  in  1827, 
taking  care  before  he  did  so  to  appoint  his  ypung  secre- 
tary to  a  place  in  the  foreign  office.  Ernest  de  la  Briere, 
then  about  twent}^-seven  years  of  age,  was  decorated 
with  the  Legion  of  honor  but  was  without  other  means 
than  his  salary  ;  he  was  accustomed  to  the  management 
of  business  and  had  learned  a  good  deal  of  life  during 
his  four  years  in  a  minister's  cabinet.  Kindly,  amiable, 
and  over-modest,  with  a  heart  full  of  pure  and  sound 
feelings,  he  was  averse  to  putting  himself  in  the  fore- 
ground. He  loved  his  country,  and  wished  to  serve 
her,  but  notoriety  abashed  him.  To  him  the  place  of 
secretary  to  a  Napoleon  was  far  more  desirable  than 
that  of  the  minister  himself.  As  soon  as  he  became  the 
friend  and  secretary  of  Canalis  he  did  a  great  amount 
of  labor  for  him,  but  by  the  end  of  eighteen  months  he 
had  learned  to  understand  the  barrenness  of  a  nature 
that  was  poetic  through  literary  expression  only.  The 
truth  of  the  old  proverb,  u  The  cowl  does  n't  make  the 
monk,"  is  eminently  shown  in  literature.  It  is  extremely 
rare  to  find  among  literary  men  a  nature  and  a  talent  that 
are  in  perfect  accord  The  faculties  are  not  the  man 
himself.  This  disconnection,  whose  phenomena  are 
amazing,  proceeds  from  an  unexplored,  possibly  an  un- 
explorable  mystery.  The  brain  and  its  products  of  all 
kinds  (for  in  art  the  hand  of  man  is  a  continuation  of 


76  Modeste   Mignon. 

his  brain)  are  a  world  apart,  which  flourishes  beneath  the 
cranium  in  absolute  independence  of  sentiments,  feel- 
ings, and  all  that  is  called  virtue,  the  virtue  of  citizens, 
fathers,  and  private  life.  This,  however  true,  is  not 
absolutely  so  ;  nothing  is  absolutely  true  of  man.  It  is 
certain  that  a  debauched  man  will  dissipate  his  talent, 
that  a  drunkard  will  waste  it  in  libations  ;  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  no  man  can  give  himself  talent  by  whole- 
some living:  nevertheless  it  is  all  but  proved  that 
Virgil,  the  painter  of  love,  never  loved  a  Dido,  and  that 
Rousseau,  the  model  citizen,  had  enough  pride  to  have 
furnished  forth  an  aristocracy.  On  the  other  hand 
Raphael  and  Michael  Angelo  do  present  the  glorious 
conjunction  of  genius  with  the  lines  of  character.  {  Tal- 
ent in  men  is  therefore,  in  all  moral  points,  very  much 
what  beauty  is  in  women,  —  simply  a  promise.  Let  us, 
therefore,  doubly  admire  the  man  in  whom  both  heart 
and  character  equal  the  perfection  of  his  genius.  > 

When  Ernest  discovered  within  his  poet  an  ambitious 
egoist,  the  worst  species  of  egoist  (for  there  are  some 
amiable  forms  of  the  vice),  he  felt  a  delicacy  in  leaving 
him.  Honest  natures  cannot  easily  break  the  ties  that 
bind  them,  especially  if  they  have  tied  them  voluntarily. 
The  secretary  was  therefore  still  living  in  domestic  rela- 
tions with  the  poet  when  Modeste's  letter  arrived,  —  in 
such  relations,  be  it  said,  as  involved  a  perpetual  sacri- 
fice of  his  feelings.  La  Briere  admitted  the  frankness 
with  which  Canalis  had  laid  himself  bare  before  him. 
Moreover,  the  defects  of  the  man,  who  will  always  be 
considered  a  great  poet  during  his  lifetime  and  flattered 
as  Marmontel  was  flattered,  were  only  the  wrong  side  of 
his   brilliant    qualities.     Without   his   vanity   and    his 


Modeste   Mignon.  77 

magniloquence  it  is  possible  that  he  might  never  have 
acquired  the  sonorous  elocution  which  is  so  useful  and 
even  necessary  an  instrument  in  political  life.  His 
cold-bloodedness  touched  at  certain  points  on  rectitude 
and  loyalty  ;  his  ostentation  had  a  lining  of  generosity. 
Results,  we  must  remember,  are  to  the  profit  of  society  ; 
motives  concern  God. 

But  after  the  arrival  of  Modeste's  letter  Ernest  de- 
ceived himself  no  longer  as  to  Canalis.  The  pair  had 
just  finished  breakfast  and  were  talking  together  in 
the  poet's  study,  which  was  on  the  ground-floor  of  a 
house  standing  back  in  a  courtyard,  and  looked  into  a 
garden. 

" There!"  exclaimed  Canalis,  "  I  was  telling  Ma- 
dame de  Chaulieu  the  other  day  that  I  ought  to  bring  out 
another  poem  \  I  knew  admiration  was  running  short, 
for  I  have  had  no  anonymous  letters  for  a  long  time." 

u  Is  it  from  an  unknown  woman?" 

"  Unknown  ?  yes  !  —  a  D'Este,  in  Havre  ;  evidently  a 
feigned  name." 

Canalis  passed  the  letter  to  La  Briere.  The  little 
poem,  with  all  its  hidden  enthusiasms,  in  short,  poor 
Modeste's  heart,  was  disdainfully  handed  over,  with  the 
gesture  of  a  spoiled  dancty. 

"  It  is  a  fine  thing,"  said  the  lawyer,  "  to  have  the 
power  to  attract  such  feelings  ;  to  force  a  poor  woman 
to  step  out  of  the  habits  which  nature,  education,  and 
the  wrorld  dictate  to  her,  to  break  through  conventions. 
What  privileges  genius  wins !  A  letter  such  as  this, 
written  by  a  young  girl  —  a  genuine  }Oung  girl  —  with- 
out hidden  meanings,  with  real  enthusiasm  —  " 

"  Well,  what?  "  said  Canalis. 


78  Modeste   Mignon. 

11  Why,  a  man  might  suffer  as  much  as  Tasso  and 
yet  feel  recompensed,"  cried  La  Brie  re. 

44  So  he  might,  my  dear  fellow,  by  a  first  letter  of  that 
kind,  and  even  a  second;  but  how  about  the  thirtieth? 
And  suppose  you  find  out  that  these  }Toung  enthusiasts 
are  little  jades  ?  Or  imagine  a  poet  rushing  along  the 
brilliant  path  in  search  of  her,  and  finding  at  the  end 
of  it  an  old  Englishwoman  sitting  on  a  mile-stone  and 
offering  you  her  hand  !  Or  suppose  this  post-office  angel 
should  really  be  a  rather  ugly  girl  in  quest  of  a  husband  ? 
Ah,  my  boy  !  the  effervescence  then  goes  down." 

"  I  begin  to  perceive,"  said  La  Briere,  smiling,  "  that 
there  is  something  poisonous  in  glory,  as  there  is  in 
certain  dazzling  flowers." 

"  And  then,"  resumed  Canalis,  "  all  these  women, 
even  when  they  are  simple-minded,  have  ideals,  and 
you  can't  satisfy  them.  They  never  say  to  themselves 
that  a  poet  is  a  vain  man,  as  I  am  accused  of  being ; 
they  can't  conceive  what  it  is  for  an  author  to  be  at  the 
mercy  of  a  feverish  excitement,  which  makes  him  dis- 
agreeable and  capricious  ;  thejT  want  him  always  grand, 
noble  ;  it  never  occurs  to  them  that  genius  is  a  disease, 
or  that  Nathan  lives  with  Florine  ;  that  D'Arthez  is  too 
fat,  and  Joseph  Bridau  is  too  thin  ;  that  Beranger  limps, 
and  that  their  own  particular  deity  may  have  the 
snuffles !  A  Lucien  de  Rubempre,  poet  and  cupid,  is 
a  phoenix.  And  vfhy  should  I  go  in  search  of  compli- 
I  ments  only  to  pull  the  string  of  a  shower-bath  of  horrid 

jlooks  from  some  disillusioned  female  ?" 

1 

1     "  Then  the  true  poet,"  said   La  Briere,   "  ought  to 

remain  hidden,  like  God,  in  the  centre  of   his  worlds, 

and  be  only  seen  in  his  own  creations." 


Modeste  Mignon.  79 

"■  Glory  would  cost  too  dear  in  that  case,"  answered 
Canalis.  "  There  is  some  good  in  life.  As  for  that  let- 
ter," he  added,  taking  a  cup  of  tea,  "  I  assure  yoxx  that 
when  a  noble  and  beautiful  woman  loves  a  poet  she 
does  not  hide  in  the  corner  boxes,  like 'a  duchess  in  love 
with  an  actor ;  she  feels  that  her  beauty,  her  fortune, 
her  name  are  protection  enough,  and  she  dares  to  say 
openly,  like  an  epic  poem  :  'I  am  the  nymph  Calypso, 
enamoured  of  Telemachus.,  Mystery  and  feigned  names 
are  the  resources  of  little  minds.  For  my  part  I  no 
longer  answer  masks  —  " 

"  I  should  love  a  woman  who  came  to  seek  me," 
cried  La  Briere.  "To  all  you  say  I  reply,  my  dear 
Canalis,  that  it  cannot  be  an  ordinarj-  girl  who  aspires 
to  a  distinguished  man  ;  such  a  girl  has  too  little  trust, 
too  much  vanity ;  she  is  too  faint-hearted.  Only  a 
star,  a  —  " 

"  —  princess  !  "  cried  Canalis,  bursting  into  a  shout  of 
laughter;  "only  a  princess  can  descend  to  him.  My 
dear  fellow,  that  does  n't  happen  once  in  a  hundred 
years.  Such  a  love  is  like  that  flower  that  blossoms 
every  century.  Princesses,  let  me  tell  you,  if  they  are 
young,  rich,  and  beautiful,  have  something  else  to  think 
of;  they  are  surrounded  like  rare  plants  by  a  hedge  of 
fools,  well-bred  idiots  as  hollow  as  elder-bushes !  My 
dream,  alas!  the  crystal  of  my  dream,  garlanded  from 
hence  to  the  Correze  with  roses — ah !  I  cannot  speak  of 
it  —  it  is  in  fragments  at  my  feet,  and  has  long  been 
so.  No,  no,  all  anonj-mous  letters  are  begging  let- 
ters ;  and  what  sort  of  begging  ?  Write  }^ourself  to 
that  young  woman,  if  you  suppose  her  young  and 
pretty,  and  you  '11  find  out.     There  is  nothing  like  ex- 


80  Modeste   Mignon. 

perience.  As  for  me,  I  can't  reasonably  be  expected  to 
love  every  woman ;  Apollo,  at  any  rate  he  of  Belve- 
dere, is  a  delicate  consumptive  who  must  take  care  of 
his  health." 

"But  when  a  woman  writes  to  you  in  this  way  her 
excuse  must  certainly  be  in  her  consciousness  that  she 
is  able  to  eclipse  in  tenderness  and  beauty  every  other 
woman,"  said  Ernest,  "and  I  should  think  you  might 
feel  some  curiosity  —  " 

"  Ah,"  said  Canalis,  "  permit  me,  my  juvenile  friend, 
to  abide  by  the  beautiful  duchess  who  is  all  my  joy." 

"  You  are  right,  }^ou  are  right !  "  cried  Ernest.  How- 
ever, the  young  secretary  read  and  re-read  Modeste's 
letter,  striving  to  guess  the  mind  of  its  hidden  writer. 

"  There  is  not  the  least  fine-writing  here,"  he  said, 
"  she  does  not  even  talk  of  your  genius  ;  she  speaks  to 
3Tour  heart.  In  your  place  I  should  feel  tempted  by  this 
fragrance  of  modesty,  —  this  proposed  agreement  — ." 

M  Then,  sign  it !  "  cried  Canalis,  laughing  ;  "  answer 
the  letter  and  go  to  the  end  of  the  adventure  yourself. 
You  shall  tell  me  the  result  three  months  hence  —  if 
the  affair  lasts  so  long." 

Four  days  later  Modeste  received  the  following  letter, 
written  on  extremely  fine  paper,  protected  by  two  en- 
velopes, and  sealed  with  the  arms  of  Canalis. 

Mademoiselle,  — The  admiration  for  fine  works  (al- 
lowing that  my  books  are  such)  implies  something  so 
lofty  and  sincere  as  to  protect  you  from  all  light  jest- 
ing, and  to  justify  before  the  sternest  judge  the  step 
you  have  taken  in  writing  to  me. 

But  first  I  must  thank  you  for  the  pleasure  which 
such  proofs  of  sympathy  afford,  even  though  we  may 


Modeste   Mignon.  81 

not  merit  them,  —  for  the  maker  of  verses  and  the  true 
poet  are  equally  certain  of  the  intrinsic  worth  of  their 
writings,  —  so  readily  does  self-esteem  lend  itself  to 
praise.  The  best  proof  of  friendship  that  I  can  give  to 
an  unknown  lady  in  exchange  for  a  faith  which  allays 
the  sting  of  criticism,  is  to  share  with  her  the  harvest 
of  my  own  experience,  even  at  the  risk  of  dispelling  her 
most  vivid  illusions. 

Mademoiselle,  the  noblest  adornment  of  a  young  girl 
is  the  flower  of  a  pure  and  saintly  and  irreproachable 
life.  Are  you  alone  in  the  world?  If  }^ou  are,  there  is 
no  need  to  say  more.  But  if  you  have  a  family,  a 
father  or  a  mother,  think  of  all  the  sorrow  that  might 
come  to  them  from  such  a  letter  as  yours  addressed  to 
a  poet  of  whom  you  know  nothing  personally.  All 
writers  are  not  angels  ;  they  have  many  defects.  Some 
are  frivolous,  heedless,  foppish,  ambitious,  dissipated ; 
and,  believe  me,  no  matter  how  imposing  innocence 
may  be,  how  chivalrous  a  poet  is,  you  will  meet  with 
man}-  a  degenerate  troubadour  in  Paris  ready  to  culti- 
vate your  affection  only  to  betra}r  it.  By  such  a  man 
your  letter  would  be  interpreted  otherwise  than  it  is  by 
me.  He  would  see  a  thought  that  is  not  in  it,  which 
you,  in  your  innocence,  have  not  suspected.  There 
are  as  many  natures  as  there  are  writers.  I  am  deeply 
flattered  that  you  have  judged  me  capable  of  under- 
standing you ;  but  had  you,  perchance,  fallen  upon  a 
hypocrite,  a  scoffer,  one  whose  books  may  be  melan- 
choly but  whose  life  is  a  perpetual  carnival,  you  would 
have  found  as  the  result  of  your  generous  imprudence 
an  evil-minded  man,  the  frequenter  of  green-rooms, 
perhaps  the  hero  of  some  gay  resort.     In  the  bower  of 

(> 


82  Modeste   Mignon. 

clematis  where  you  dream  of  poets,  can  you  smell  the 
odor  of  the  cigar  which  drives  all  poetry  from  the 
manuscript  ? 

But  let  us  look  still  further.  How  could  the  dreamy, 
solitary  life  you  lead,  doubtless  by  the  sea-shore,  in- 
terest a  poet,  whose  mission  it  is  to  imagine  all,  and 
to  paint  all?  What  reality  can  equal  imagination? 
The  young  girls  of  the  poets  are  so  ideal  that  no  living 
daughter  of  Eve  can  compete  with  them.  And  now 
tell  me,  what  will  you  gain,  —  you,  a  young  girl,  brought 
up  to  be  the  virtuous  mother  of  a  family,  — if  you  learn 
to  comprehend  the  terrible  agitations  of  a  poet's  life  in 
this  dreadful  capital,  which  may  be  defined  by  one  sen- 
tence, —  the  hell  in  which  men  love. 
V  If  the  desire  to  brighten  the  monotonous  existence 
i  of  a  young  girl  thirsting  for  a  knowledge  of  life  has  led 
you  to  take  your  pen  in  hand  and  write  to  me,  has  not 
the  step  itself  the  appearance  of  degradation?  What 
meaning  am  I  to  give  to  your  letter  ?  Are  you  one  of 
a  rejected  caste,  and  do  you  seek  a  friend  far  away 
from  you  ?  Or,  are  you  afflicted  with  personal  ugliness, 
yet  feeling  within  you  a  noble  soul  which  can  give  and 
receive  a  confidence?  Alas,  alas,  the  conclusion  to  be 
drawn  is  grievous.  You  have  said  too  much,  or  too 
little  ;  you  have  gone  too  far,  or  not  far  enough.  Either 
let  us  drop  this  correspondence,  or,  if  you  continue 
it,  tell  me  more  than  in  the  letter  you  have  now 
written  me. 

But,  mademoiselle,  if  you  are  young,  if  you  are  beau- 
tiful, if  you  have  a  home,  a  family,  if  in  your  heart  you 
have  the  precious  ointment,  the  spikenard,  to  pour  out, 
as  did  Magdalene  on  the  feet  of  Jesus,  let  yourself  be 


Modeste   Mignon.  83 

won  by  a  man  worthy  of  you  ;  become  what  every  pure  ] 
young  girl  should  be,  —  a  good  woman,  the  virtuous 
mother  of  a  family.  A  poet  is  the  saddest  conquest 
that  a  girl  can  make ;  he  is  full  of  vanity,  full  of  an- 
gles that  will  sharply  wound  a  woman's  proper  pride, 
and  kill  a  tenderness  which  has  no  experience  of  life. 
The  wife  of  a  poet  should  love  him  long  before  she 
marries  him  ;  she  must  train  herself  to  the  'charity  of 
angels,  to  their  forbearance,  to  all  the  virtues  of  moth- 
erhood. Such  qualities,  mademoiselle,  are  but  germs 
in  a  young  girl. 

Hear  the  whole  truth,  — do  I  not  owe  it  to  you  in 
return  for  your  intoxicating  flattery  ?  If  it  is  a  glorious 
thing  to  marry  a  great  renown,  remember  also  that  you 
must  soon  discover  a  superior  man  to  be,  in  all  that 
makes  a  man,  like  other  men.  He  therefore  poorly 
realizes  the  hopes  that  attach  to  him  as  a  phoenix.  He 
becomes  like  a  woman  whose  beauty  is  overpraised, 
and  of  whom  we  say :  "I  thought  her  far  more  lovely." 
She  has  not  warranted  the  portrait  painted  by  the  fairy 
to  whom  I  owe  your  letter,  —  the  fairy  whose  name  is 
Imagination. 

Believe  me,  the  qualities  of  the  mind  live  and  thrive 
only  in  a  sphere  invisible,  not  in  daily  life  ;  the  wife  of 
a  poet  bears  the  burden ;  she  sees  the  jewels  manufac- 
tured, but  she  never  wears  them.  If  the  glory  of  the 
position  fascinates  you,  hear  me  now  when  I  tell  you 
that  its  pleasures  are  soon  at  an  end.  You  will  suffer 
when  you  find  so  many  asperities  in  a  nature  which, 
from  a  distance,  you  thought  equable,  and  such  cold- 
ness at  the  shining  summit.  Moreover,  as  women  never 
set  their  feet  within  the  world  of  real  difficulties,  they 


84  Modeste   Mignon. 

cease  to  appreciate  what  they  once  admired  as  soon 
as  they  think  they  see  the  inner  mechanism  of  it. 

I  close  with  a  last  thought,  in  which  there  is  no  dis- 
guised entreaty  ;  it  is  the  counsel  of  a  friend.  The  ex- 
change of  souls  can  take  place  only  between  persons 
who  are  resolved  to  hide  nothing  from  each  other. 
Would  you  show  yourself  for  such  as  you  are  to  an 
unknown  man?  I  dare  not  follow  out  the  consequences 
of  that  idea. 

Deign  to  accept,  mademoiselle,  the  homage  which 
we  owe  to  all  women,  even  those  who  are  disguised 
and  masked. 

So  this  was  the  letter  she  had  worn  between  her  flesh 
and  her  corset  above  her  palpitating  heart  throughout 
one  whole  day  !  For  this  she  had  postponed  the  read- 
ing until  the  midnight  hour  when  the  household  slept, 
waiting  for  the  solemn  silence  with  the  eager  anxiety 
of  an  imagination  on  fire !  For  this  she  had  blessed 
the  poet  by  anticipation,  reading  a  thousand  letters  ere 
she  opened  one,  —  fancying  all  things,  except  this  drop 
of  cold  water  falling  upon  the  vaporous  forms  of  her 
illusion,  and  dissolving  them  as  prussic  acid  dissolves 
life.  What  could  she  do  but  hide  herself  in  her  bed,  blow 
out  her  candle,  bury  her  face  in  the  sheets  and  weep  ? 

All  this  happened  during  the  first  days  of  July.  But 
Modeste  presently  got  up,  walked  across  the  room  and 
opened  the  window.  She  wanted  air.  The  fragrance 
of  the  flowers  came  to  her  with  the  peculiar  freshness 
of  the  odors  of  the  night.  The  sea,  lighted  by  the 
moon,  sparkled  like  a  mirror.  A  nightingale  was 
singing  in  a  tree.     "  Ah,  there  is  the  poet!  "  thought 


Mode8te  Mignon.  85 

Modeste,  whose  anger  subsided  at  once.  Bitter  re- 
flections chased  each  other  through  her  mind.  She 
was  cut  to  the  quick  ;  she  wished  to  re-read  the  letter, 
and  lit  a  candle ;  she  studied  the  sentences  so  care- 
fully studied  when  written ;  and  ended  by  hearing  the 
wheezing  voice  of  the  outer  world. 

"He  is  right,  and  I  am  wrong,"  she  said  to  herself. 
"But  who  could  ever  believe  that  under -the  starry 
mantle  of  a  poet  I  should  find  nothing  but  one  of 
Moliere's  old  men?" 

When  a  woman  or  young  girl  is  taken  in  the  act, 
flagrante  delicto,  she  conceives  a  deadly  hatred  to  the 
witness,  the  author,  or  the  object  of  her  fault.  And  so 
the  true,  the  single-minded,  the  untamed  and  untam- 
able Modeste  conceived  within  her  soul  an  unquench- 
able desire  to  get  the  better  of  that  righteous  spirit,  to 
drive  him  into  some  fatal  inconsistency,  and  so  return 
him  blow  for  blow.  This  girl,  this  child,  as  we  may 
call  her,  so  pure,  whose  head  alone  had  been  mis- 
guided, —  partly  by  her  reading,  partly  by  her  sister's 
sorrows,  and  more  perhaps  by  the  dangerous  medita- 
tions of  her  solitary  life,  —  was  suddenly  caught  by  a 
ray  of  sunshine  flickering  across  her  face.  She  had 
been  standing  for  three  hours  on  the  shores  of  the  vast 
sea  of  Doubt.  Nights  like  these  are  never  forgotten. 
Modeste  walked  straight  to  her  little  Chinese  table,  a 
gift  from  her  father,  and  wrote  a  letter  dictated  by  the 
infernal  spirit  of  vengeance  which  palpitates  in  the 
hearts  of  young  girls. 


86  Modeste   Mignon. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

BLADE   TO   BLADE. 

To  Monsieur  de  Canalis : 

Monsieur,  —  You  are  certainly  a  great  poet,  and  you 
are  something  more,  —  an  honest  man.  After  showing 
such  loyal  frankness  to  a  young  girl  who  was  step- 
ping to  the  verge  of  an  abyss,  have  you  enough  left 
to  answer  without  hypocrisy  or  evasion  the  following 
question  ? 

Would  you  have  written  the  letter  I  now  hold  in  an- 
swer to  mine,  —  would  your  ideas,  your  language  have 
been  the  same,  —  had  some  one  whispered  in  your  ear 
(what  may  prove  true),  Mademoiselle  O.  d'Este  M.  has 
six  millions  and  does  not  intend  to  have  a  dunce  for 
a  master? 

Admit  the  supposition  for  a  moment.  Be  with  me 
what  you  are  with  yourself ;  fear  nothing.  I  am  wiser 
than  my  twenty  years  ;  nothing  that  is  frank  can  hurt 
you  in  my  mind.  When  I  have  read  your  confidence, 
if  you  deign  to  make  it,  you  shall  receive  from  me  an 
answer  to  your  first  letter. 

Having  admired  your  talent,  often  so  sublime,  per- 
mit me  to  do  homage  to  your  delicacy  and  your  inte- 
grity, which  force  me  to  remain  always, 

Your  humble  servant, 

O.  d'Este  M. 


Modeste   Mignon.  87 

When  Ernest  de  La  Briere  had  held  this  letter  in  his 
hands  for  some  little  time  he  went  to  walk  along  the 
boulevards,  tossed  in  mind  like  a  tiny  vessel  by  a  tem- 
pest when  the  wind  is  blowing  from  all  the  points  of 
the  compass.  Most  young  men,  specially  true  Paris- 
ians, would  have  settled  the  matter  in  a  single  phrase, 
"The  girl  is  a  little  hussy."  But  for  a  youth  whose 
soul  was  noble  and  true,  this  attempt  to  put  him,  as  it 
were,  upon  his  oath,  this  appeal  to  truth,  hacl  the  power 
to  awaken  the  three  judges  hidden  in  the  conscience  of 
every  man.  Honor,  Truth,  and  Justice,  getting  on  their 
feet,  cried  out  in  their  several  ways  energetically. 

"Ah,  my  dear  Ernest,"  said  Truth,  "you  never 
would  have  read  that  lesson  to  a  rich  heiress.  No,  my 
boy;  you  would  have  gone  in  hot  haste  to  Havre  to 
find  out  if  the  girl  were  handsome,  and  you  would  have 
been  very  unhappy  indeed  at  her  preference  for  genius ; 
and  if  you  could  have  tripped  up  }Tour  friend  and  sup- 
planted him  in  her  affections,  Mademoiselle  d'Este 
would  have  been  a  divinity." 

"What?"  cried  Justice,  "are  }^ou  not  always  be- 
moaning yourselves,  you  penniless  men  of  wit  and  ca- 
pacity, that  rich  girls  marry  beings  whom  you  would  n't 
take  as  your  servants.  You  rail  against  the  material- 
ism of  the  century  which  hastens  to  join  wealth  to 
wealth,  and  never  marries  some  fine  young  man  with 
brains  and  no  money  to  a  rich  girl.  What  an  outcry 
you  make  about  it ;  and  yet  here  is  a  young  woman  who 
revolts  against  that  very  spirit  of  the  age,  and  behold  ! 
the  poet  replies  with  a  blow  at  her  heart !  " 

"  Eich  or  poor,  young  or  old,  ugly  or  handsome,  the 
girl  is  right;  she   has   sense  and  judgment,  she   has 


88  Modeste    Mignon. 

tripped  you  over  into  the  slough  of  self-interest  and 
lets  you  know  it,"  cried  Honor.  "  She  deserves  an 
answer,  a  sincere  and  loyal  and  frank  answer,  and, 
above  all,  the  honest  expression  of  your  thought.  Ex- 
amine yourself!  sound  your  heart  and  purge  it  of  its 
meannesses.     What  would  Moliere's  Alceste  say  ?  " 

And  La  Briere,  having  started  from  the  boulevard 
Poissoniere,  walked  so  slowly,  absorbed  in  these  reflec- 
tions, that  he  was  more  than  an  hour  in  reaching  the 
boulevard  des  Capucines.  Then  he  followed  the  quays, 
which  led  him  to  the  Cour  des  Comptes,  situated  in 
that  time  close  to  the  Saint-Chapelle.  Instead  of  be- 
ginning on  the  accounts  as  he  should  have  done,  he 
remained  at  the  mercy  of  his  perplexities. 

"  One  thing  is  evident,"  he  said  to  himself;  "she 
has  n't  six  millions  ;  but  that's  not  the  point —  " 

Six  days  later,  Modeste  received  the  following  letter  : 

Mademoiselle,  — You  are  not  a  D'Este.  The  name 
is  a  feigned  one  to  conceal  your  own.  Do  I  owe  the 
revelations  which  you  solicit  to  a  person  who  is  untruth- 
ful about  herself?  Question  for  question :  Are  30U  of 
an  illustrious  family?  or  a  noble  family?  or  a  middle- 
class  family?  Undoubtedly  ethics  and  morality  can- 
not change ;  they  are  one :  but  obligations  vary  in 
the  different  states  of  life.  Just  as  the  sun  lights  up 
a  scene  diversely  and  produces  differences  which  we 
admire,  so  morality  conforms  social  duty  to  rank,  to 
position.  The  peccadillo  of  a  soldier  is  a  crime  in  a 
r  general,  and  vice-versa.  Observances  are  not  alike  in 
\all  cases.  They  are  not  the  same  for  the  gleaner  in  the 
field,  for  the  girl  who  sews  at  fifteen  sous  a  day,  for  the 


Modeste   Mignon.  89 

daughter  of  a  petty  shopkeeper,  for  the  young  bour- 
geoise,  for  the  child  of  a  rich  merchant,  for  the  heiress 
of  a  noble  family,  for  a  daughter  of  the  house  of 
Este.  A  king  must  not  stoop  to  pick  up  a  piece 
of  gold,  but  a  laborer  ought  to  retrace  his  steps 
to  find  ten  sous ;  though  both  are  equally  bound  to 
obey  the  laws  of  economy.  A  daughter  of  Este,  who 
is  worth  six  millions,  has  the  right  to  wear  a  broad- 
brimmed  hat  and  plume,  to  flourish  her  whip,  press  the 
flanks  of  her  barb,  and  ride  like  an  amazon  decked  in 
gold  lace,  with  a  lackey  behind  her,  into  the  presence 
of  a  poet  and  say :  "  I  love  poetry ;  and  I  would  fain 
expiate  Leonora's  cruelty  to  Tasso ! "  but  a  daughter 
of  the  people  would  cover  herself  with  ridicule  by  imi- 
tating her.  To  what  class  do  you  belong?  Answer 
sincerely,  and  I  will  answer  the  question  you  have  put 
to  me. 

As  I  have  not  the  honor  of  knowing  you  personally, 
and  yet  am  bound  to  you,  in  a  measure,  by  the  ties  of 
poetic  communion,  I  am  unwilling  to  offer  any  common- 
place compliments.  Perhaps  you  have  already  won  a 
malicious  victory  by  thus  embarrassing  a  maker  of 
books. 

The  young  man  was  certainly  not  wanting  in  the  sort 
of  shrewdness  which  is  permissible  to  a  man  of  honor. 
By  return  courier  he  received  an  answer :  — 

To  Monsieur  de  Canalis, —  You  grow  more  and 
more  sensible,  my  dear  poet.  My  father  is  a  count. 
The  chief  glory  of  our  house  was  a  cardinal,  in  the 
days  when  cardinals  walked  the  earth  by  the  side  of 
kings.     I  am  the  last  of  our  family,  which  ends  in  me ; 


90  Modest e   Mignon. 

but  I  have  the  necessary  quarterings  to  make  my  entry 
into  any  court  or  chapter-house  in  Europe.  We  are 
quite  the  equals  of  the  Canalis.  You  will  be  so  kind 
as  to  excuse  me  from  sending  you  our  arms. 

Endeavor  to  answer  me  as  truthfully  as  I  have  now 
answered  you.  I  await  your  response  to  know  if  I  can 
then  sign  myself  as  I  do  now, 

Your  servant,  O.  d'Este  M. 

u  The  little  mischief!  how  she  abuses  her  privileges," 
cried  La  Briere  ;  "  but  is  n't  she  frank !  " 

No  young  man  can  be  four  years  private  secretary  to  a 
cabinet  minister,  and  live  in  Paris  and  observe  the  carry- 
ing on  of  many  intrigues,  with  perfect  impunity ;  in  fact, 
the  purest  soul  is  more  or  less  intoxicated  by  the  heady 
atmosphere  of  the  imperial  (Aty.  Happj^  in  the  thought 
that  he  was  not  Canalis,  our  young  secretary  engaged 
a  place  in  the  mail-coach  for  Havre,  after  writing  a  let- 
ter in  which  he  announced  that  the  promised  answer 
would  be  sent  a  few  days  later,  —  excusing  the  delay  on 
the  ground  of  the  importance  of  the  confession  and 
the  pressure  of  his  duties  at  the  ministry. 

He  took  care  to  get  from  the  director-general  of 
the  post-office  a  note  to  the  postmaster  at  Havre, 
requesting  secrecy  and  attention  to  his  wishes.  Ernest 
was  thus  enabled  to  see  Franchise  Cochet  when  she 
came  for  the  letters,  and  to  follow  her  without  exciting 
observation.  Guided  by  her,  he  reached  Ingouville 
and  saw  Modeste  Mignon  at  the  window  of  the  Chalet. 

"  Well,  Franchise?"  he  heard  the  young  girl  say: 
to  which  the  maid  responded,  — 

wt  Yes,  mademoiselle,  I  have  one." 


Modeste   Mignon.  91 

Struck  by  the  girl's  great  beauty,  Ernest  retraced  his 
steps  and  asked  a  man  on  the  street  the  name  of  the 
owner  of  the  magnificent  estate. 

14  That?  "  said  the  man,  nodding  to  the  villa. 

"  Yes,  my  friend." 

"  Oh,  that  belongs  to  Monsieur  Vilquin,  the  richest 
shipping  merchant  in  Havre,  so  rich  he  does  n't  know 
what  he  is  worth." 

"  There  is  no  Cardinal  Vilquin  that  I  know  of  in  his- 
tory," thought  Ernest,  as  he  walked  back  to  Havre  for 
the  night  mail  to  Paris.  Naturally  he  questioned  the 
postmaster  about  the  Vilquin  family,  and  learned  that 
it  possessed  an  enormous  fortune.  Monsieur  Vilquin 
had  a  son  and  two  daughters,  one  of  whom  was  mar- 
ried to  Monsieur  Althor,  junior.  Prudence  kept  La 
Briere  from  seeming  anxious  about  the  Vilquins ;  the 
postmaster  was  already  looking  at  him  slyly. 

"  Is  there  there  any  one  staying  with  them  at  the 
present  moment,"  he  asked,  "besides  the  family?" 

u  The  d'Herouville  family  is  there  just  now.  They 
do  talk  of  a  marriage  between  the  young  duke  and  the 
remaining  Mademoiselle  Vilquin." 

"Ha!"  thought  Ernest;  "there  was  a  celebrated 
Cardinal  d'Herouville  under  the  Valois,  and  a  terri- 
ble marshal  whom  they  made  a  duke  in  the  time  of 
Henri  IV." 

Ernest  returned  to  Paris  having  seen  enough  of 
Modeste  to  dream  of  her,  and  to  think  that,  whether 
she  were  rich  or  whether  she  were  poor,  if  she  had  a 
noble  soul  he  would  like  to  make  her  Madame  de 
La  Briere ;  and  so  thinking,  he  resolved  to  continue 
the  correspondence. 


92  Modeste   Mignon. 

Ah !  you  poor  women  of  France,  try  to  remain  hid- 
den if  you  can ;  try  to  weave  the  least  little  romance 
about  your  lives  in  the  midst  of  a  civilization  which 
posts  in  the  public  streets  the  hours  when  the  coaches 
arrive  and  depart ;  which  counts  all  letters  and  stamps 
them  twice  over,  first  with  the  hour  when  they  are 
thrown  into  the  boxes,  and  next  with  that  of  their 
delivery ;  which  numbers  the  houses,  prints  the  tax  of 
each  tenant  on  a  metal  register  at  the  doors  (after 
verifying  its  particulars),  and  will  soon  possess  one 
vast  register  of  every  inch  of  its  territory  down  to  the 
smallest  parcel  of  land,  and  the  most  insignificant  feat- 
ures of  it,  —  a  giant  work  ordained  by  a  giant.  Try,  im- 
prudent young  ladies,  to  escape  not  only  the  eye  of  the 
police,  but  the  incessant  chatter  which  takes  place  in  a 
country  town  about  the  veriest  trifles,  — how  many  dishes 
the  prefect  has  at  his  dessert,  how  many  slices  of  melon 
are  left  at  the  door  of  some  small  householder,  —  which 
strains  its  ear  to  catch  the  chink  of  the  gold  a  thrifty 
man  lays  by,  and  spends  its  evenings  in  calculating  the 
incomes  of  the  village  and  the  town  and  the  department. 
It  was  mere  chance  that  enabled  Modeste  to  escape  dis- 
covery through  Ernest's  reconnoitring  expedition,  —  a 
step  which  he  already  regretted  ;  but  what  Parisian  can 
allow  himself  to  be  the  dupe  of  a  little  country  girl? 
Incapable  of  being  duped !  that  horrid  maxim  is  the 
dissolvent  of  all  noble  sentiments  in  man. 

We  can  readily  guess  the  struggle  of  feeling  to  which 
this  honest  young  fellow  fell  a  prey  when  we  read  the 
letter  that  he  now  indited,  in  which  every  stroke  of  the 
flail  which  scourged  his  conscience  will  be  found  to 
have  left  its  trace. 


Modeste   Mignon.  93 

This  is  what  Modeste  read  a  few  days  later,  as  she 
sat  by  her  window  on  a  fine  summer's  day  :  — 

Mademoiselle,  —  Without  hypocrisy  or  evasion,  yes, 
if  I  had  been  certain  that  you  possessed  an  immense 
fortune  I  should  have  acted  differently.  Why?  I  have 
searched  for  the  reason ;  here  it  is.  We  have  within 
us  an  inborn  feeling,  inordinately  developed  by  social 
life,  which  drives  us  to  the  pursuit  and  to  the  posses- 
sion of  happiness.  Most  men  confound  happiness  with 
the  means  that  lead  to  it ;  money  in  their  eyes  is  the 
chief  element  of  happiness.  I  should,  therefore,  have 
endeavored  to  win  you,  prompted  by  that  social  senti- 
ment which  has  in  all  ages  made  wealth  a  religion. 
At  least,  I  think  I  should.  It  is  not  to  be  expected  of 
a  man  still  young  that  he  can  have  the  wisdom  to 
substitute  sound  sense  for  the  pleasure  of  the  senses ; 
within  sight  of  a  pre}'  the  brutal  instincts  hidden  in  the 
heart  of  man  drive  him  on.  ■  Instead  of  that  lesson,  I 
should  have  sent  }Tou  compliments  and  flatteries.  Should 
I  have  kept  my  own  esteem  in  so  doing  ?  I  doubt  it. 
Mademoiselle,  in  such  a  case  success  brings  absolu- 
tion ;  but  happiness  ?  that  is  another  thing.  Should  I 
have  distrusted  my  wife  had  I  won  her  in  that  wajr? 
Most  assuredly  I  should.  Your  advance  to  me  would 
sooner  or  later  have  come  between  us.  Your  husband, 
however  grand  }Tour  fancy  may  make  him,  would  have 
ended  by  reproaching  you  for  having  abased  him. 
You,  yourself,  might  have  come,  sooner  or  later,  to 
despise  him.  The  strong  man  forgives,  but  the  poet 
whines.  Such,  mademoiselle,  is  the  answer  which  my 
honesty  compels  me  to  make  to  you. 


94  Modeste   Mignon. 

And  now,  listen  to  me.  You  have  the  triumph  of 
forcing  me  to  reflect  deeply,  —  first  on  you,  whom  I  do 
not  sufficiently  know ;  next,  on  myself,  of  whom  I 
knew  too  little.  You  have  had  the  power  to  stir  up 
many  of  the  evil  thoughts  which  crouched  in  my  heart, 
as  in  all  hearts  ;  but  from  them  something  good  and 
generous  has  come  forth,  and  I  salute  you  with  my 
most  fervent  benedictions,  just  as  at  sea  we  salute  the 
lighthouse  which  shows  the  rocks  on  which  we  were 
about  to  perish.  Here  is  nry  confession,  for  I  would 
not  lose  your  esteem  nor  my  own  for  all  the  treasures 
of  earth. 

I  wished  to  know  who  you  are.  I  have  just  returned 
from  Havre,  where  I  saw  Francoise  Cochet,  and  fol- 
lowed her  to  Ingouville.  You  are  as  beautiful  as  the 
woman  of  a  poet's  dream ;  but  I  do  not  know  if  }OU 
are  Mademoiselle  Vilquin  concealed  under  Mademoi- 
selle d'Herouville,  or  Mademoiselle  d'Herouville  hidden 
under  Mademoiselle  Vilquin.  Though  all  is  fair  in 
war,  I  blushed  at  such  spying  and  stopped  short  in  my 
inquiries.  You  have  roused  my  curiosity ;  forgive  me 
for  being  somewhat  of  a  woman ;  it  is,  I  believe,  the 
privilege  of  a  poet. 

Now  that  I  have  laid  bare  my  heart  and  allowed  you 
to  read  it,  you  will  believe  in  the  sincerity  of  what  I 
am  about  to  add.  Though  the  glimpse  I  had  of  you 
was  all  too  rapid,  it  has  sufficed  to  modify  my  opinion 
of  your  conduct.  You  are  a  poet  and  a  poem,  even- 
more  than  you  are  a  woman.  Yes,  there  is  in  you 
something  more  precious  than  beauty ;  you  are  the 
beautiful  Ideal  of  art,  of  fancy.  The  step  3-ou  took, 
blamable  as  it  would  be  in  an  ordinary  young  girl, 


Modeste   Mignon.  95 

allotted  to  an  every-day  destiny,  has  another  aspect  in 
one  endowed  with  the  nature  whicli  I  now  attribute  to 
you.  Among  the  crowd  of  beings  flung  by  fate  into 
the  social  life  of  this  planet  to  make  up  a  generation 
there  are  exceptional  souls.  If  your  letter  is  the  out- 
come of  long  poetic  reveries  on  the  fate  which  conven- 
tions bring  to  women,  if,  constrained  hy  the  impulse 
of  a  lofty  and  intelligent  mind,  you  have 'wished  to 
understand  the  life  of  a  man  to  whom  you  attribute  the 
gift  of  genius,  to  the  end  that  you  may  create  a  friend- 
ship withdrawn  from  the  ordinary  relations  of  life,  with 
a  soul  in  communion  with  your  own,  disregarding  thus 
the  ordinary  trammels  of  your  sex,  —  then,  assuredly, 
you  are  an  exception.  The  law  which  rightly  limits 
the  actions  of  the  crowd  is  too  limited  for  you.  But  in 
that  case,  the  remark  in  my  first  letter  returns  in  greater 
force,  —  you  have  done  too  much  or  not  enough. 

Accept  once  more  my  thanks  for  the  service  you 
have  rendered  me,  that  of  compelling  me  to  sound  my 
heart.  You  have  corrected  in  me  the  false  idea,  only 
too  common  in  France,  that  marriage  should  be  a 
means  of  fortune.  While  I  struggled  with  my  con- 
science a  sacred  voice  spoke  to  me.  I  swore  solemnly 
to  make  my  fortune  myself,  and  not  be  led  by  mo- 
tives of  cupidity  in  choosing  the  companion  of  my 
life.  I  have  also  reproached  m}Tself  for  the  blam- 
able  curiosity  you  have  excited  in  me.  You  have  not 
six  millions.  There  is  no  concealment  possible  in 
Havre  for  a  young  lady  who  possesses  such  a  fortune  ; 
you  would  be  discovered  at  once  by  the  pack  of  hounds 
of  great  families  whom  I  see  in  Paris  on  the  hunt  after 
heiresses,  and  who  have  already  sent  one,  the  grand 


96  Modeste   Mignon. 

equerry,  the  young  duke,  among  the  Vilquins.  There- 
fore, believe  me,  the  sentiments  I  have  now  expressed 
are  fixed  in  my  mind  as  a  rule  of  life,  from  which  I 
have  abstracted  all  influences  of  romance  or  of  actual 
fact.  Prove  to  me,  therefore,  that  you  have  one  of 
those  souls  which  may  be  forgiven  for  its  disobedience 
to  the  common  law,  by  perceiving  and  comprehending 
the  spirit  of  this  letter  as  you  did  that  of  my  first  letter. 
If  you  are  destined  to  a  middle-class  life,  obe}T  the  iron 
law  which  holds  society  together.  Lifted  in  mind 
above  other  women,  I  admire  }'ou ;  but  if  you  seek  to 
obey  an  impulse  which  you  ought  to  repress,  I  pity  you. 
The  all- wise  moral  of  that  great  domestic  epic  "Clarissa 
Harlowe  "  is  that  legitimate  and  honorable  love  led  the 
poor  victim  to  her  ruin  because  it  was  conceived,  de- 
Are loped,  and  pursued  beyond  the  boundaries  of  family 
restraint.  The  family,  however  cruel  and  even  foolish 
it  may  be,  is  in  the  right  against  the  Lovelaces.  The 
family  is  Societ}^.  Believe  me,  the  glory  of  a  young 
girl,  of  a  woman,  must  always  be  that  of  repressing 
her  most  ardent  impulses  within  the  narrow  sphere  of 
conventions.  If  I  had  a  daughter  able  to  become  a 
Madame  de  Stael  I  should  wish  her  dead  at  fifteen. 
Can  you  imagine  a  daughter  of  yours  flaunting  on  the 
stage  of  fame,  exhibiting  herself  to  win  the  plaudits  of 
a  crowd,  and  not  suffer  anguish  at  the  thought?  No 
matter  to  what  heights  a  woman  can  rise  by  the  inward 
poetry  of  her  soul,  she  must  sacrifice  the  outer  signs  of 
superiority  on  the  altar  of  her  home.  Her  impulse,  her 
genius,  her  aspirations  toward  Good,  the  whole  poem 
of  a  young  girl's  being,  should  belong  to  the  man  she 
accepts  and   the   children  whom   she   brings  into  the 


Modeste   Mignon.  97 

world.  I  think  I  perceive  in  you  a  secret  desire  to 
widen  the  narrow  circle  of  the  life  to  which  all  women  are 
condemned,  and  to  put  love  and  passion  into  marriage. 
Ah !  it  is  a  lovely  dream  !  it  is  not  impossible ;  it  is 
difficult,  but  if  realized,  may  it  not  be  to  the  despair  of 
souls — forgive  me  the  hackneyed  word  —  incompris? 

If  you  seek  a  platonic  friendship  it  will  be  to  your 
sorrow  in  after  years.  If  your  letter  was  a  jest,  dis- 
continue it.  Perhaps  this  little  romance  is  to  end  here 
—  is  it  ?  It  has  not  been  without  fruit.  My  sense  of 
duty  is  aroused,  and  you,  on  your  side,  will  have 
learned  something  of  Society.  Turn  your  thoughts  to 
real  life  ;  throw  the  enthusiasms  you  have  culled  from 
literature  into  the  virtues  of  your  sex. 

Adieu,  mademoiselle.  Do  me  the  honor  to  grant 
me  your  esteem.  Having  seen  you,  or  one  whom  I 
believe  to  be  you,  I  have  known  that  your  letter  was 
simply  natural ;  a  flower  so  lovely  turns  to  the  sun  — 
of  poetry.  Yes,  love  poetry  as  you  love  flowers, 
music,  the  grandeur  of  the  sea,  the  beauties  of  nature ; 
love  them  as  an  adornment  of  the  soul,  but  remember 
what  I  have  had  the  honor  of  telling  you  as  to  the 
nature  of  poets.  Be  cautious  not  to  marry,  as  3^011  say, 
a  dunce,  but  seek  the  partner  whom  God  has  made  for 
you.  There  are  souls,  believe  me,  who  are  fit  to  ap- 
preciate you,  and  to  make  you  happy.  If  I  were  rich, 
if  you  were  poor,  I  would  lay  my  heart  and  my  fortunes 
at  3Tour  feet ;  for  I  believe  your  soul  to  be  full  of  riches 
and  of  loyalty ;  to  you  I  could  confide  my  life  and  my 
honor  in  absolute  security. 

Once  more,  adieu,  adieu,  fairest  daughter  of  Eve  the 
fair., 

7 


98  3Iodeste    Mignon. 

The  reading  of  this  letter,  swallowed  like  a  drop  of 
water  in  the  desert,  lifted  the  mountain  which  weighed 
heavily  on  Modeste's  heart :  then  she  saw  the  mistake 
she  had  made  in  arranging  her  plan,  and  repaired  it  by 
giving  Francoise  some  envelopes  directed  to  herself,  in 
which  the  maid  could  put  the  letters  which  came  from 
Paris  and  drop  them  again  into  the  box.  Modeste  re- 
solved to  receive  the  postman  herself  on  the  steps  of 
the  Chalet  at  the  hour  when  he  made  his  delivery. 

As  to  the  feelings  that  this  reply,  in  which  the  noble 
heart  of  poor  La  Briere  beat  beneath  the  brilliant  phan- 
tom of  Canalis,  excited  in  Modeste,  they  were  as  multi- 
farious and  confused  as  the  waves  which  rushed  to  die 
along  the  shore  while  with  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  wide 
ocean  she  gave  herself  up  to  the  joy  of  having  (if  we 
dare  say  so)  harpooned  an  angelic  soul  in  the  Parisian 
Gulf,  of  having  divined  that  hearts  of  price  might  still 
be  found  in  harmony  with  genius,  and,  above  all,  for 
having  followed  the  magic  voice  of  intuition. 

A  vast  interest  was  now  about  to  animate  her  life. 
The  wires  of  her  cage  were  broken  :  the  bolts  and  bars 
of  the  pretty  Chalet — where  were  they  ?  Her  thoughts 
took  wings. 

"  Oh,  father!  "  she  cried,  looking  out  to  the  horizon. 
"  Come  back  and  make  us  rich  and  happy." 

The  answer  which  Ernest  de  La  Briere  received  some 
five  days  later  will  tell  the  reader  more  than  any  elab- 
orate disquisition  of  ours. 


Modeste   Mignon.  99 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE   POWER   OF   THE   UNSEEN. 

To  Monsieur  de  Canalis : 

My  friend,  —  Suffer  me  to  give  you  that  name,  — 
you  have  delighted  me ;  I  would  not  have  you  other 
than  you  are  in  this  letter,  the  first  —  oh,  may  it  not  be 
the  last !  Who  but  a  poet  could  have  excused  and  un- 
derstood a  young  girl  so  delicately? 

I  wish  to  speak  with  the  sincerity  that  dictated  the 
first  lines  of  your  letter.  And  first,  let  me  say  that 
most  fortunately  you  do  not  know  me.  I  can  joyfully 
assure  you  that  I  am  neither  that  hideous  Mademoiselle 
Vilquin  nor  the  very  noble  and  withered  Mademoiselle 
d'Herouville  who  floats  between  twenty  and  forty  3^ears 
of  age,  unable  to  decide  on  a  satisfactory  date.  The 
Cardinal  d'Herouville  flourished  in  the  history  of  the 
Church  at  least  a  century  before  the  cardinal  of  whom 
we  boast  as  our  only  family  glory,  —  for  I  take  no 
account  of  lieutenant-generals,  and  abbes  who  write 
trumpery  little  verses. 

Moreover,  I  do  not  live  in  the  magnificent  villa  Vil- 
quin ;  there  is  not  in  my  veins,  thank  God,  the  ten- 
millionth  of  a  drop  of  that  chilly  blood  which  flows 
behind  a  counter.  I  come  on  one  side  from  German}', 
on  the  other  from  the  south  of  France ;  nry  mind  has  a 


100  Modeste   Mignon. 

Teutonic  love  of  revery,  my  blood  the  vivacity  of  Pro- 
vence. I  am  noble  on  my  father's  and  on  my  mother's 
side.  On  my  mother's  I  derive  from  every  page  of  the 
Almanach  de  Gotha.  In  short,  my  precautions  are  well 
taken.  It  is  not  in  any  man's  power,  nor  even  in  the 
power  of  the  law,  to  unmask  my  incognito.  I  shall 
remain  veiled,  unknown. 

As  to  my  person  and  as  to  my  "  belongings,"  as  the 
Normans  sa3T,  make  yourself  easy.  1  am  at  least  as 
handsome  as  the  little  girl  (ignorantly  happy)  on  whom 
your  eyes  chanced  to  light  during  your  visit  to  Havre  ; 
and  I  do  not  call  myself  poverty-stricken,  although  ten 
sons  of  peers  majT  not  accompany  me  in  my  walks.  I 
have  seen  the  humiliating  comedy  of  the  heiress  sought 
for  her  millions  played  on  my  account.  In  short,  make 
no  attempt,  even  on  a  wager,  to  reach  me.  Alas! 
though  free  as  air,  I  am  watched  and  guarded^—  by 
•  myself,  in  the  first  place,  and  secondly,  by  people  of 
nerve  and  courage  who  would  not  hesitate  to  put  a 
knife  in  your  heart  if  you  tried  to  penetrate  nrv  retreat. 
I  do  not  say  this  to  excite  your  courage  or  stimulate 
your  curiosity ;  I  believe  I  have  no  need  of  such  incen- 
tives to  interest  you  and  attach  you  to  me. 

I  will  now  reply  to  the  second  edition,  considerably 
enlarged,  of  your  first  sermon. 

Will  you  have  a  confession  ?  I  said  to  myself  when 
I  saw  you  so  distrustful,  and  mistaking  me  for  Corinne 
(whose  improvisations  bore  me  dreadfully),  that  in  all 
probability  dozens  of  Muses  had  alread3T  led  you,  rashly 
curious,  into  their  valleys,  and  begged  you  to  taste  the 
fruits  of  their  boarding-school  Parnassus.  Oh !  you  are 
perfectly  safe  with  me,  my  friend  ;  I  may  love  poetry, 


Modeste   Mignon.  101 

but  I  have  no  little  verses  in  my  pocket-book,  and  my 
stockings  are,  and  will  remain,  immaculately  white.  You 
shall  not  be  pestered  with  the  "  Flowers  of  my  Heart" 
in  one  or  more  volumes.  And,  finally,  should  it  ever 
happen  that  I  say  to  you  the  word  M  Come  !  "  you  will 
not  find — you  know  it  now  —  an  old  maid,  no,  nor  a 
poor  and  ugly  one. 

Ah !  my  friend,  if  you  only  knew  how  I  regret  that 
you  came  to  Havre !  You  have  lowered  the  charm  of 
what  you  call  my  romance.  God  alone  knew  the  treas- 
ure I  was  reserving  for  the  man  noble  enough,  and 
trusting  enough,  and  perspicacious  enough  to  come  — 
having  faith  in  my  letters,  having  penetrated  step  by 
step  into  the  depths  of  my  heart  —  to  come  to  our  first 
meeting  with  the  simplicity  of  a  child :  for  that  was 
what  I  dreamed  to  be  the  innocence  of  a  man  of  genius. 
And  now  you  have  spoiled  my  treasure !  But  I  forgive 
you  ;  you  live  in  Paris  and,  as  you  say,  there  is  always 
a  man  within  a  poet. 

Because  I  tell  you  this  will  3Tou  think  me  some  little 
girl  who  cultivates  a  garden-full  of  illusions?  You, 
who  are  witty  and  wise,  have  you  not  guessed  that 
when  Mademoiselle  d'Este  received  your  pedantic  les- 
son she  said  to  herself:  "  No,  dear  poet,  my  first  let- 
ter was  not  the  pebble  which  a  vagabond  child  flings 
about  the  highway  to  frighten  the  owner  of  the  adjacent 
fruit-trees,  but  a  net  carefully  and  prudently  thrown  by 
a  fisherman  seated  on  a  rock  above  the  sea,  hoping  and 
expecting  a  miraculous  draught." 

All  that  you  say  so  beautifully  about  the  family  has 
my  approval.  The  man  who  is  able  to  please  me,  and 
of  whom  I  believe  myself  worthy,  will  have  my  heart 


102  Modeste   Mignon. 

and  my  life,  —  with  the  consent  of  my  parents,  for  I  will 
neither  grieve  them,  nor  take  them  unawares :  happily, 
I  am  certain  of  reigning  over  them  ;  and,  besides,  the}' 
are  wholly  without  prejudices.  Indeed,  in  every  way, 
I  feel  myself  protected  against  an}'  delusions  in  my 
dream.  I  have  built  the  fortress  with  my  own  hands, 
and  I  have  let  it  be  fortified  by  the  boundless  devotion 
of  those  who  watch  over  me  as  if  I  were  a  treasure,  — 
not  that  I  am  unable  to  defend  myself  in  the  open,  if 
need  be ;  for,  let  me  say,  circumstances  have  furnished 
me  with  armor  of  proof  on  which  is  engraved  the  word 
"Disdain."  I  have  the  deepest  horror  of  all  that  is 
calculating  —  of  all  that  is  not  pure,  disinterested,  and 
wholly  noble.  I  worship  the  beautiful,  the  ideal,  with- 
out being  romantic  ;  though  I  have  been,  in  my  heart  of 
hearts,  in  my  dreams.  But  I  recognize  the  truth  of  the 
various  things,  just  even  to  vulgarity,  which  you  have 
written  me  about  Society  and  social  life. 

For  the  time  being  we  are,  and  we  can  only  be,  two 
friends.  Wiry  seek  an  unseen  friend?  you  ask.  Your 
person  may  be  unknown  to  me,  but  your  mind,  your 
heart  I  knovj ;  the}'  please  me,  and  I  feel  an  infinitude 
of  thoughts  within  my  soul  which  need  a  man  of  genius 
for  their  confidant.  I  do  not  wish  the  poem  of  my 
heart  to  be  wasted  ;  I  would  have  it  known  to  you  as  it 
is  to  God.  What  a  precious  thing  is  a  true  comrade, 
one  to  whom  we  can  tell  all !  You  will  surely  not  re- 
ject the  unpublished  leaflets  of  a  young  girl's  thoughts 
when  they  fly  to  you  like  the  pretty  insects  fluttering  to 
the  sun?  I  am  sure  you  have  never  before  met  with 
this  good  fortune  of  the  soul, — the  honest  confidences 
of  an  honest  girl.     Listen  to  her  prattle ;    accept  the 


Modeste   Mignon.  103 

music  that  she  sings  to  you  in  her  own  heart.  Later,  if 
our  souls  are  sisters,  if  our  characters  warrant  the  at- 
tempt, a  white-haired  old  serving-man  shall  await  you 
by  the  wayside  and  lead  you  to  the  cottage,  the  villa, 
the  castle,  the  palace  —  I  don't  yet  know  what  sort  of 
bower  it  will  be,  nor  what  its  color,  nor  whether  this 
conclusion  will  ever  be  possible  ;  but  you  will  admit, 
will  you  not?  that  it  is  poetic,  and  that  Mademoiselle 
d'Este  has  a  complying  disposition.  Has  she  not  left 
you  free  ?  Has  she  gone  with  jealous  feet  to  watch  3*011 
in  the  salons  of  Paris  ?  Has  she  imposed  upon  you  the 
labors  of  some  high  emprise,  such  as  paladins  sought 
voluntarily  in  the  olden  time?  No,  she  asks  a  perfectly 
spiritual  and  mjstic  alliance.  Come  to  me  when  you 
are  unhappy,  wounded,  wearjr.  Tell  me  all,  hide  noth- 
ing ;  I  have  balms  for  all  your  ills.  I  am  twenty  years 
of  age,  dear  friend,  but  I  have  the  sense  of  fifty,  and 
unfortunately  I  have  known  through  the  experience  of 
another  all  the  horrors  and  the  delights  of  love.  I 
know  what  baseness  the  human  heart  can  contain,  what 
infam}' ;  yet  I  myself  am  an  honest  girl.  No,  I  have 
no  illusions ;  but  I  have  something  better,  something 
real,  —  I  have  beliefs  and  a  religion.  See  !  I  open  the 
ball  of  our  confidences. 

Whoever  I  marry  —  provided  I  choose  him  for  my- 
self—  may  sleep  in  peace  or  go  to  the  East  Indies  sure 
that  he  will  find  me  on  his  return  working  at  the  tap- 
estry which  I  began  before  he  left  me ;  and  in  every 
stitch  he  shall  read  a  verse  of  the  poem  of  which  he  has 
been  the  hero.  Yes,  I  have  resolved  within  my  heart 
never  to  follow  my  husband  where  he  does  not  wish 
me  to  go.     I  will  be  the  divinity  of  his  hearth.     That 


104  Modeste   Mignon. 

is  my  religion  of  humanity.  But  why  should  I  not  test 
and  choose  the  man  to  whom  I  am  to  be  like  the  life 
to  the  body?  Is  a  man  ever  impeded  by  life?  What 
can  that  woman  be  who  thwarts  the  man  she  loves  ?  — 
an  illness,  a  disease,  not  life.  By  life,  I  mean  that  joy- 
ous health  which  makes  each  hour  a  pleasure. 

But  to  return  to  your  letter,  which  will  always  be 
precious  to  me.  Yes,  jesting  apart,  it  contains  that 
which  I  desired,  an  expression  of  prosaic  sentiments 
which  are  as  necessary  to  family  life  as  air  to  the 
lungs ;  and  without  which  no  happiness  is  possible. 
To  act  as  an  honest  man,  to  think  as  a  poet,  to  love  as 
women  love,  that  is  what  I  longed  for  in  my  friend, 
and  it  is  now  no  longer  a  chimera. 

Adieu,  my  friend.  I  am  poor  at  this  moment.  That 
is  one  of  the  reasons  why  I  cling  to  my  concealment, 
my  mask,  my  impregnable  fortress.  I  have  read  your 
last  verses  in  the  "  Revue,"  —  ah  !  with  what  delight, 
now  that  I  am  initiated  in  the  austere  loftiness  of  your 
secret  soul. 

Will  it  make  you  unhappy  to  know  that  a  3'oung  girl 
prays  for  }Tou ;  that  you  are  her  solitary  thought,  — 
without  a  rival  except  in  her  father  and  her  mother? 
Can  there  be  any  reason  why  3Tou  should  reject  these 
pages  full  of  you,  written  for  you,  seen  by  no  eye  but 
3'ours?  Send  me  their  counterpart.  I  am  so  little  of 
a  woman  yet  that  your  confidences  —  provided  they  are 
full  and  true  —  will  suffice  for  the  happiness  of  yoxxv 

O.  d'Este  M. 

"Good  heavens!  can  I  be  in  love  already?"  cried 
the  young  secretary,  when  he  perceived  that  he  had  held 


Modeste   Mignon.  105 

the  above  letter  in  his  hands  more  than  an  hour  after 
reading  it.  "  What  shall  I  do?  She  thinks  she  is  writ- 
ing to  the  great  poet !  Can  I  continue  the  deception  ? 
Is  she  a  woman  of  forty,  or  a  girl  of  twenty  ?  " 

Ernest  was  now  fascinated  by  the  great  gulf  of  the 
unseen.  The  unseen  is  the  obscurity  of  infinitude,  and 
nothing  is  more  alluring.  In  that  sombre  vastness 
fires  flash,  and  furrow  and  color  the  abyss  with  fancies 
like  those  of  Martin.  For  a  bus}7  man  like  Canalis,  an 
adventure  of  this  kind  is  swept  away  like  a  harebell  b}r 
a  mountain  torrent,  but  in  the  more  unoccupied  life  of 
the  young  secretary,  this  charming  girl,  whom  his  im- 
agination persistently  connected  with  the  blonde  beauty 
at  the  window,  fastened  upon  his  heart,  and  did  as 
much  mischief  in  his  regulated  life  as  a  fox  in  a  pounry- 
3'ard.  La  Briere  allowed  himself  to  be  preoccupied  by 
this  mysterious  correspondent ;  and  he  answered  her 
last  letter  with  another,  a  pretentious  and  carefully 
studied  epistle,  in  which,  however,  passion  begins  to 
reveal  itself  through  pique. 

Mademoiselle,  — Is  it  quite  lo}'al  in  you  to  enthrone 
yourself  in  the  heart  of  a  poor  poet  with  a  latent  inten- 
tion of  abandoning  him  if  he  is  not  exactly  what  3-011 
wish,  leaving  him  to  endless  regrets,  —  showing  him  for 
a  moment  an  image  of  perfection,  were  it  only  as- 
sumed, and  at  any  rate  giving  him  a  foretaste  of  happi- 
ness ?  I  was  very  short-sighted  in  soliciting  this  letter, 
in  which  you  have  begun  to  unfold  the  elegant  fabric 
of  your  thoughts.  A  man  can  easily  become  enamoured 
with  a  mysterious  unknown  who  combines  such  fear- 
lessness  with   such   originality,  so   much   imagination 


106  Modeste    Mignon. 

with  so  much  feeling.  Who  would  not  wish  to  know 
you  after  reading  your  first  confidence  ?  It  requires  a 
strong  effort  on  my  part  to  retain  my  senses  in  think- 
ing of  you,  for  you  combine  all  that  can  trouble  the 
head  or  the  heart  of  man.  I  therefore  make  the  most 
of  the  little  self-possession  yoxx  have  left  me  to  offer 
3^ou  my  humble  remonstrances. 

Do  you  really  believe,  mademoiselle,  that  letters, 
more  or  less  true  in  relation  to  the  life  of  the  writers, 
more  or  less  insincere,  —  for  those  which  we  write 
to  each  other  are  the  expressions  of  the  moment  at 
which  we  pen  them,  and  not  of  the  general  tenor  of  our 
lives,  —  do  you  believe,  I  say,  that  beautiful  as  they 
may  be,  they  can  at  all  replace  the  representation  that 
we  could  make  of  ourselves  to  each  other  by  the  reve- 
lations of  daily  intercourse  ?  Man  is  dual.  There  is  a 
life  invisible,  that  of  the  heart,  to  which  letters  may 
suffice  ;  and  there  is  a  life  material,  to  which  more  im- 
portance is,  alas,  attached  than  yo"u  are  aware  of  at 
your  age.  These  two  existences  must,  however,  be 
made  to  harmonize  in  the  ideal  which  you  cherish ;  and 
this,  I  may  remark  in  passing,  is  very  rare. 

The  pure,  spontaneous,  disinterested  homage  of  a  soli- 
tar}7  soul  which  is  both  educated  and  chaste,  is  one  of 
those  celestial  flowers  whose  color  and  fragrance  console 
for  every  grief,  for  every  wound,  for  every  betrayal  which 
makes  up  the  life  of  a  literary  man ;  and  I  thank  you 
with  an  impulse  equal  to  your  own.  But  after  this 
poetical  exchange  of  my  griefs  for  the  pearls  of  }rour 
charity,  what  next?  what  do  }tou  expect?  I  have 
neither  the  genius  nor  the  splendid  position  of  Lord 
Byron  ;  above  all,  I  have  not  the  halo  of  his  fictitious 


Modeste   Mignon.  107 

damnation  and  his  false  social  woes.  But  what  could 
you  have  hoped  from  him  in  like  circumstances?  His 
friendship?  Well,  he  who  ought  to  have  felt  only  pride 
was  eaten  up  by  vanity  of  every  kind,  —  sickly,  irritable 
vanity  which  discouraged  friendship.  I,  a  thousand- 
fold more  insignificant  than  he,  may  I  not  have  discord- 
ances of  character  which  would  render  intercourse 
unpleasant,  and  make  friendship  a  burden  heavy  indeed 
to  bear?  In  exchange  for  your  reveries,  what  will  you 
gain?  The  dissatisfactions  of  a  life  which  will  not  be 
wholly  3rours.  The  compact  is  madness.  Let  me  tell 
you  why.  In  the  first  place,  your  projected  poem  is  a 
plagiarism.  A  }X>ung  German  girl,  who  was  not,  like 
you,  semi-German,  but  altogether  so,  adored  Goethe 
with  the  rash  intoxication  of  girlhood.  She  made  him 
her  friend,  her  religion,  her  god,  knowing  at  the  same 
time  that  he  was  married.  Madame  Goethe,  a  worth}^ 
German  woman,  lent  herself  to  this  worship  with  a  sly 
good-nature  which  did  not  cure  Bettina.  But  what 
was  the  end  of  it  all?  The  3'oung  ecstatic  married  a 
man  who  was  }ounger  and  handsomer  than  Goethe. 
Now,  between  ourselves,  let  us  admit  that  a  young 
girl  who  should  make  herself  the  handmaid  of  a  man 
of  genius,  his  equal  through  comprehension,  and  should 
piously  worship  him  till  death,  like  one  of  those  divine 
figures  sketched  by  the  masters  on  the  shutters  of  their 
mystic  shrines,  and  who,  when  Germany  lost  him, 
should  have  retired  to  some  solitude  awa}-  from  men, 
like  the  friend  of  Lord  Bolingbroke,  —  let  us  admit, 
I  say,  that  that  young  girl  would  have  lived  forever, 
inlaid  in  the  glorj-  of  the  poet  as  Mary  Magdalene  in 
the  cross  and  triumph  of  our  Lord.     If  that  is  sublime, 


108  Modeste   Mignon. 

what  say  }^ou  to  the  reverse  of  the  picture?  As  I  am 
neither  Goethe  nor  Lord  Byron,  the  colossi  of  poetry 
and  egotism,  but  simply  the  author  of  a  few  esteemed 
verses,  I  cannot  expect  the  honors  of  a  cult.  Neither 
am  I  disposed  to  be  a  martyr.  I  have  ambition,  and  I 
have  a  heart ;  I  am  still  }X>ung  and  I  have  my  career 
to  make.  See  me  for  what  I  am.  The  bounty  of  the 
king  and  the  protection  of  his  ministers  give  me  suf- 
ficient means  of  living.  I  have  the  outward  bearing 
of  a  very  ordinary  man.  I  go  to  the  soirees  in  Paris 
like  any  other  empt}'-headed  fop ;  and  if  I  drive,  the 
wheels  of  my  carriage  do  not  roll  on  the  solid  ground, 
absolutely  indispensable  in  these  days,  of  property  in- 
vested in  the  funds.  But  if  I  am  not  rich,  neither  do 
I  have  the  reliefs  and  consolations  of  life  in  a  garret, 
the  toil  uncomprehended,  the  fame  in  penury,  which 
belong  to  men  who  are  worth  far  more  than  I,  — 
D'Arthez,  for  instance. 

Ah  !  what  prosaic  conclusions  will  }'our  }'oung  enthu- 
siasm find  to  these  enchanting  visions.  Let  us  stop 
here.  If  I  have  had  the  happiness  of  seeming  to  you 
a  terrestrial  paragon,  you  have  been  to  me  a  thing  of 
light  and  a  beacon,  like  those  stars  that  shine  for  a 
moment  and  disappear.  May  nothing  ever  tarnish  this 
episode  of  our  lives.  Were  we  to  continue  it  I  might 
love  you ;  I  might  conceive  one  of  those  mad  passions 
which  rend  all  obstacles,  which  light  fires  in  the  heart 
whose  violence  is  greater  than  their  duration.  And 
suppose  I  succeeded  in  pleasing  you?  we  should  end 
our  tale  in  the  common  vulgar  way,  —  marriage,  a 
household,  children,  Belise  and  Henriette  Chrysale  to- 
gether !  —  could  it  be?     Therefore,  adieu. 


Modeste    Mignon.  109 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE   MARRIAGE    OF   SOULS. 

To  Monsieur  de  Canalis  : 

My  Friend,  —  Youi;  letter  gives  me  as  much  pain  as 
pleasure.  But  perhaps  some  da}r  we  shall  find  nothing 
but  pleasure  in  writing  to  each  other.  Understand  me 
thoroughly.  The  soul  speaks  to  God  and  asks  him  for 
many  things ;  he  is  mute.  I  seek  to  obtain  in  you  the 
answers  that  God  does  not  make  to  me.  Cannot  the 
friendship  of  Mademoiselle  de  Gournay  and  Montaigne 
be  revived  in  us  ?  Do  }ou  not  remember  the  household 
of  Sismonde  de  Sismondi  in  Geneva  ?  The  most  lovely 
home  ever  known,  as  I  have  been  told  ;  something  like 
that  of  the  Marquis  de  Pescaire  and  his  wife,  —  happy 
to  old  age.  Ah !  friend,  is  it  impossible  that  two 
hearts,  two  harps,  should  exist  as  in  a  symphon}',  an- 
swering each  other  from  a  distance,  vibrating  with  deli- 
cious melody  in  unison  ?  Man  alone  of  all  creation 
is  in  himself  the  harp,  the  musician,  and  the  listener. 
Do  you  think  to  find  me  uneasy  and  jealous  like  ordi- 
nary women  ?  I  know  that  you  go  into  the  world  and 
meet  the  handsomest  and  the  wittiest  women  in  Paris. 
May  I  not  suppose  that  some  one  of  those  mermaids 
has  deigned  to  clasp  you  in  her  cold  and  scaly  arms, 
and  that  she  has  inspired  the  answer  whose  prosaic 
opinions  sadden  me  ?     There  is  something  in  life  more 


university) 


110  Modeste   Mignon. 

beautiful  than  the  garlands  of  Parisian  coquetry ;  there 
grows  a  flower  far  up  those  Alpine  peaks  called  men  of 
genius,  the  glory  of  humanity,  which  they  fertilize  with 
the  dews  their  lofty  heads  draw  from  the  skies.  I  seek 
to  cultivate  that  flower  and  make  it  bloom  ;  for  its  wild 
yet  gentle  fragrance  can  never  fail,  —  it  is  eternal. 

Do  me  the  honor  to  believe  that  there  is  nothing  low 
or  commonplace  in  me.  Were  I  Bettina,  for  I  know 
to  whom  you  allude,  I  should  never  have  become  Ma- 
dame von  Arnim  ;  and  had  I  been  one  of  Lord  Byron's 
many  loves,  I  should  be  at  this  moment  in  a  cloister. 
You  have  touched  me  to  the  quick.  You  do  not  know 
me,  but  you  shall  know  me.  I  feel  within  me  something 
that  is  sublime,  of  which  I  dare  speak  without  vanity. 
God  has  put  into  my  soul  the  roots  of  that  Alpine 
flower  born  on  the  summits  of  which  I  speak,  and  I 
cannot  plant  it  in  an  earthen  pot  upon  m}-  window-sill 
and  see  it  die.  No,  that  glorious  flower-cup,  single  in 
its  beauty,  intoxicating  in  its  fragrance,  shall  not  be 
dragged  through  the  vulgarities  of  life !  it  is  yours  — 
yours,  before  any  e}'e  has  blighted  it,  yours  forever ! 
Yes,  my  poet,  to  you  belong  my  thoughts,  —  all,  those 
that  are  secret,  those  that  are  gayest ;  my  heart  is  yours 
without  reserve  and  with  its  infinite  affection.  If  you 
should  personally  not  please  me,  I  shall  never  marry. 
I  can  live  the  life  of  the  heart,  I  can  exist  on  your  mind, 
your  sentiments  ;  they  please  me,  and  I  will  always  be 
what  I  am,  your  friend.  Yours  is  a  noble  moral  nature  ; 
I  have  recognized  it,  I  have  appreciated  it,  and  that 
suffices  me.  In  that  is  all  my  future.  Do  not  laugh  at 
a  3'oung  and  pretty  handmaiden  who  shrinks  not  from 
the  thought  of  being  some  day  the  old  companion  of  a 


Modeste   Mignon.  Ill 

poet, — a  sort  of  mother  perhaps,  or  a  housekeeper  ;  the 
guide  of  his  judgment  and  a  source  of  his  wealth.  This 
handmaiden  —  so  devoted,  so  precious  to  the  lives  of 
such  as  you — is  Friendship,  pure,  disinterested  friend- 
ship, to  whom  you  will  tell  all,  who  listens  and  some- 
times shakes  her  head ;  who  knits  by  the  light  of  the 
lamp  and  waits  to  be  present  when  the  poet  returns  home 
soaked  with  rain,  or  vexed  in  mind.  Such  shall  be  my 
destiny  if  I  do  not  find  that  of  a  happy  wife  attached 
forever  to  her  husband ;  I  smile  alike  at  the  thought 
of  either  fate.  Do  }rou  believe  France  will  be  any  the 
worse  if  Mademoiselle  d'Este  does  not  give  it  two  or 
three  sons,  and  never  becomes  a  Madame  Vilquin- 
something-or-other?  As  for  me,  I  shall  never  be,  an 
old  maid.  I  shall  make  myself  a  mother,  b}'  taking 
care  of  others  and  by  my  secret  co-operation  in  the 
existence  of  a  great  man,  to  whom  also  I  shall  carry 
all  my  thoughts  and  all  my  earthly  efforts. 

I  have  the  deepest  horror  of  commonplaceness.  If 
I  am  free,  if  I  am  rich  (and  I  know  that  I  am  young 
and  pretty),  I  will  never  belong  to  any  ninny  just 
because  he  is  the  son  of  a  peer  of  France,  nor  to  a 
merchant  who  could  ruin  himself  and  me  in  a  da}r,  nor 
to  a  handsome  creature  who  would  be  a  sort  of  woman 
in  the  household,  nor  to  a  man  of  any  kind  who 
would  make  me  blush  twenty  times  a  day  for  being 
his.  Make  yourself  easy  on  that  point.  My  father 
adores  my  wishes ;  he  will  never  oppose  them.  If  I 
please  my  poet,  and  he  pleases  me,  the  glorious  struc- 
ture of  our  love  shall  be  built  so  high  as  to  be  inacces- 
sible to  any  kind  of  misfortune.  I  am  an  eaglet ;  and 
you  will  see  it  in  my  eyes. 


112  Modeste    Mignon. 

I  shall  not  repeat  what  I  have  already  said,  bat  I 
will  put  its  substance  in  the  least  possible  number  of 
words,  and  confess  to  you  that  I  should  be  the  happiest 
of  women  if  I  were  imprisoned  by  love  as  I  am  now 
imprisoned  by  the  wish  and  will  of  a  father.  Ah ! 
my  friend,  may  we  bring  to  a  real  end  the  romance 
that  has  come  to  us  through  the  first  exercise  of  my 
will :  listen  to  its  argument :  — 

A  young  girl  with  a  lively  imagination,  locked  up  in 
a  tower,  is  weary  with  longing  to  run  loose  in  the  park 
where  her  eyes  only  are  allowed  to  rove.  She  invents 
a  way  to  loosen  her  bars ;  she  jumps  from  the  case- 
ment ;  she  scales  the  park  wall ;  she  frolics  along  the 
neighbor's  swardfc—  it  is  the  Everlasting  comedy. 
Well,  that  young  girl  is  my  soul,  the  neighbor's  park 
is  your  genius.  Is  it  not  all  very  natural  ?  Was  there 
ever  a  neighbor  that  did  not  complain  that  unknown 
feet  broke  down  his  trellises?  I  leave  it  to  my  poet 
to  answer. 

But  does  the  lofty  reasoner  after  the  fashion  of  Mo- 
liere  want  still  better  reasons?  Well,  here  they  are. 
My  dear  Geronte,  marriages  are  usually  made  in  de- 
fiance of  common-sense.  Parents  make  inquiries  about 
a  young  man.  If  the  Leander  —  who  is  supplied  by 
some  friend,  or  caught  in  a  ball-room  —  is  not  a  thief, 
and  has  no  visible  rent  in  his  reputation,  if  he  has  the 
necessary  fortune,  if  he  comes  from  a  college  or  a  law- 
school  and  so  fulfils  the  popular  ideas  of  education,  and 
if  he  wears  his  clothes  with  a  gentlemanly  air,  he  is 
allowed  to  meet  the  young  lady,  whose  mother  has  or- 
dered her  to  guard  her  tongue,  to  let  no  sign  of  her 
heart  or  soul  appear  on  her  face,  which  must  wear  the 


Modest e  Mignon.  113 

smile  of  a  danseuse  finishing  a  pirouette.  These  com- 
mands are  coupled  with  instructions  as  to  the  dan- 
ger of  revealing  her  real  character,  and  the  additional 
advice  of  not  seeming  alarmingly  well  educated.  If 
the  settlements  have  all  been  agreed  upon,  the  parents 
are  good-natured  enough  to  let  the  pair  see  each  other 
for  a  few  moments ;  they  are  allowed  to  talk  or  walk 
together,  but  always  without  the  slightest  freedom,  and 
knowing  that  they  are  bound  by  rigid  rules.  The  man 
is  as  much  dressed  up  in  soul  as  he  is  in  body,  and  so 
is  the  young  girl.  This  pitiable  comedy,  mixed  with 
bouquets,  jewels,  and  theatre-parties  is  called  "  paying 
your  addresses."  It  revolts  me :  I  desire  that  actual 
marriage  shall  be  the  result  of  a  previous  and  long  mar- 
riage of  souls.  A  3Toung  girl,  a  woman,  has  throughout 
her  life  only  this  one  moment  when  reflection,  second 
sight,  and  experience  are  necessary  to  her.  She  plays 
her  liberty,  her  happiness,  and  she  is  not  allowed  to 
throw  the  dice ;  she  risks  her  all,  and  is  forced  to  be 
a  mere  spectator.  I  have  the  right,  the  will,  the  power 
to  make  my  own  unhappiness,  and  I  use  them,  as  did 
my  mother,  who,  won  by  beauty  and  led  by  instinct, 
married  the  most  generous,  the  most  liberal,  the  most 
loving  of  men.  I  know  that  3  ou  are  free,  a  poet,  and 
noble-looking.  Be  sure  that  I  should  not  have  chosen 
one  of  your  brothers  in  Apollo  who  was  alread}7  married. 
If  my  mother  was  won  by  beauty,  which  is  perhaps  the 
spirit  of  form,  why  should  I  not  be  attracted  by  the 
spirit  and  the  form  united  ?  Shall  I  not  know  30U  bet- 
ter by  studying  you  in  this  correspondence  than  I  could 
through  the  vulgar  experience  of  ' '  receiving  your  ad- 
dresses "  ?     That  is  the  question,  as  Hamlet  says. 


114  Modeste   Mignon. 

But  ray  proceedings,  dear  Chrysale,  have  at  least  the 
merit  of  not  binding  us  personally.  I  know  that  love 
has  its  illusions,  and  every  illusion  its  to-morrow.  That 
is  why  there  are  so  many  partings  among  lovers  vowed 
to  each  other  for  life.  The  proof  of  love  lies  in  two 
things,  —  suffering  and  happiness.  When,  after  pass- 
ing through  these  double  trials  of  life  two  beings  have 
shown  each  other  their  defects  as  well  as  their  good 
qualities,  when  they  have  really  observed  each  other's 
character,  then  they  may  go  to  their  grave  hand  in 
hand.  My  dear  Argante,  who  told  you  that  our  little 
drama  thus  begun  was  to  have  no  future?  In  any 
case  shall  we  not  have  enjoyed  the  pleasures  of  our 
correspondence  ? 

I  await  your  orders,  monseigneur,  and  I  am  with  all 
my  heart, 

Your  handmaiden, 

O.  d'Este  M. 


To  Mademoiselle  O.  d'Este  M.,  —  You  are  a 
witch,  a  spirit,  and  I  love  you !  Is  that  what  }^ou 
desire  of  me,  most  original  of  girls  ?  Perhaps  you 
are  only  seeking  to  amuse  your  provincial  leisure  with 
the  follies  which  you  are  able  to  make  a  poet  com- 
mit. If  so,  you  have  done  a  bad  deed.  Your  two 
letters  have  enough  of  the  spirit  of  mischief  in  them 
to  force  this  doubt  into  the  mind  of  a  Parisian.  But 
I  am  no  longer  master  of  myself;  my  life,  my  future 
depend  on  the  answer  you  will  make  m*t  Tell  me 
if  the  certainty  of  an  unbounded  aftlctior,,  oblivious 
of  all  social  conventions,  will  toucl  you, — if  }'on  will 


Modeste  Mignon.  115 

suffer  me  to  seek  }Tou.  There  is  anxiety  enough  and 
uncertainty  enough  in  the  question  as  to  whether  I  can 
personally  please  you.  If  your  reply  is  favorable  I 
change  my  life,  I  bid  adieu  to  all  the  irksome  pleasures 
which  we  have  the  folly  to  call  happiness.  Happiness, 
my  dear  and  beautiful  unknown,  is  what  you  dream  it 
to  be, — a  fusion  of  feelings,  a  perfect  accordance  of 
souls,  the  imprint  of  a  noble  ideal  (such  as' God  does 
permit  us  to  form  in  this  low  world)  upon  the  trivial 
round  of  daily  life  whose  habits  we  must  needs  obey,  a 
constancy  of  heart  more  precious  far  than  what  we  call 
fidelity.  Can  we  say  that  we  make  sacrifices  when  the 
end  in  view  is  our  eternal  good,  the  dream  of  poets, 
the  dream  of  maidens,  the  poem  which,  at  the  entrance 
of  life  when  thought  essays  its  wings,  each  noble  intel- 
lect has  pondered  and  caressed  only  to  see  it  shivered 
to  fragments  on  some  stone  of  stumbling  as  hard  as  it 
is  vulgar?  —  for  to  the  great  majorit}'  of  men,  the  foot 
of  reality  steps  instantly  on  that  mysterious  egg  so 
seldom  hatched. 

I  cannot  speak  to  you  amr  more  of  myself;  not  of 
nay  past  life,  nor  of  my  character,  nor  of  an  affection 
almost  maternal  on  one  side,  filial  on  mine,  which  you 
have  already  seriously  changed  —  an  effect  upon  my 
life  which  must  explain  my  use  of  the  word  "  sacrifice." 
You  have  already  rendered  me  forgetful,  if  not  ungrate- 
ful ;  does  that  satisfy  you  ?  Oh,  speak !  Say  to  me 
one  word,  and  I  will  love  you  till  my  eyes  close  in 
death,  as  the  Marquis  de  Pescaire  loved  his  wife,  as 
Romeo  loved  Juliet,  and  faithful^.  Our  life  will  be, 
for  me  at  least,  that  "  felicity  untroubled"  which  Dante 
made  the  very  element  of  his  Paradiso,  —  a  poem  far 


116  Modeste  Mignon. 

superior  to  his  Inferno.  Strange,  it  is  not  myself  that 
I  doubt  in  the  long  reveries  through  which,  like  you,  I 
follow  the  windings  of  a  dreamed  existence ;  it  is  you. 
Yes,  dear,  I  feel  within  me  the  power  to  love,  and  to 
love  endlessly, — to  march  to  the  grave  with  gentle  slow- 
ness and  a  smiling  eye,  with  my  beloved  on  my  arm,  and 
with  never  a  cloud  upon  the  sunshine  of  our  souls.  Yes, 
I  dare  to  face  our  mutual  old  age,  to  see  ourselves  with 
whitening  heads,  like  the  venerable  historian  of  Italy, 
inspired  always  with  the  same  affection  but  transformed 
in  soul  by  our  life's  seasons.  Hear  me,  I  can  no  longer 
be  your  friend  only.  Though  Chrysale,  Geronte,  and 
Argante  re-live,  you  say,  in  me,  I  am  not  yet  old 
enough  to  drink  from  the  cup  held  to  my  lips  by  the 
sweet  hands  of  a  veiled  woman  without  a  passionate 
desire  to  tear  off  the  domino  and  the  mask  and  see  the 
face.  Either  write  me  no  more,  or  give  me  hope.  Let 
me  see  you,  or  let  me  go.  Must  I  bid  you  adieu?  Will 
you  permit  me  to  sign  myself, 

Your  Friend? 

To  Monsieur  de  Canalis, — What  flattery!  with 
what  rapidity  is  the  grave  Anselme  transformed  into  a 
handsome  Leander !  To  what  must  I  attribute  such  a 
change?  to  this  black  which  I  put  upon  this  white? 
to  these  ideas  which  are  to  the  flowers  of  my  soul 
what  a  rose  drawn  in  charcoal  is  to  the  roses  in  the 
garden?  Or  is  it  to  a  recollection  of  the  young  girl 
whom  you  took  for  me,  and  who  is  personally  as  like 
me  as  a  waiting- woman  is  like  her  mistress  ?  Have  we 
changed  roles  ?  Have  I  the  sense  ?  have  you  the  fancy  ? 
But  a  truce  with  jesting. 


Modeste   Mignon.  117 

Your  letter  has  made  me  know  the  elating  pleasures 
of  the  soul ;  the  first  that  I  have  known  outside  of  my 
family  affections.  What,  says  a  poet,  are  the  ties  of 
blood  which  are  so  strong  in  ordinary  minds,  compared 
to  those  divinely  forged  within  us  by  mysterious  sj-m- 
pathies  ?  Let  me  thank  you  —  no,  we  must  not  thank 
each  other  for  such  things  —  but  God  bless  you  for  the 
happiness  you  have  given  me  ;  be  happy  in' the  joy  you 
have  shed  into  my  soul.  You  explain  to  me  some  of 
the  apparent  injustices  in  social  life.  There  is  some- 
thing, I  know  not  what,  so  dazzling,  so  virile  in  glory, 
that  it  belongs  only  to  man  ;  God  forbids  us  women  to 
wear  its  halo,  but  he  makes  love  our  portion,  giviug  us 
the  tenderness  which  soothes  the  brow  scorched  03'  his 
lightnings.  I  have  felt  my  mission,  and  you  have  now 
confirmed  it. 

Sometimes,  my  friend,  I  rise  in  the  morning  in  a 
state  of  inexpressible  sweetness ;  a  sort  of  peace,  ten- 
der and  divine,  gives  me  an  idea  of  heaven.  My  first 
thought  is  then  like  a  benediction.  I  call  these  morn- 
ings my  little  German  wakings,  in  opposition  to  my 
Southern  sunsets,  full  of  heroic  deeds,  battles,  Roman 
fStes  and  ardent  poems.  Well,  after  reading  your  letter, 
so  full  of  feverish  impatience,  I  felt  in  my  heart  all  the 
freshness  of  my  celestial  wakings,  when  I  love  the  air 
about  me  and  all  nature,  and  fancy  that  I  am  destined 
to  die  for  one  I  love.  One  of  your  poems,  "The 
Maiden's  Song,"  paints  these  delicious  moments,  when 
gayety  is  tender,  when  aspiration  is  a  need ;  it  is  one 
of  my  favorites.  Do  you  want  me  to  put  all  my  flat- 
teries into  one?  —  well  then,  I  think  you  worthy  to  be 
met 


118  Modeste   Mignon. 


Your  letter,  though  short,  enables  me  to  read  within 
you.  Yes,  I  have  guessed  your  tumultuous  struggles, 
your  piqued  curiosity,  your  projects ;  but  I  do  not 
yet  know  you  well  enough  to  satisf}r  your  wishes. 
Hear  me,  dear ;  the  mystery  in  which  I  am  shrouded 
allows  me  to  use  that  word,  which  lets  you  see  to  the 
bottom  of  my  heart.  Hear  me  :  if  we  once  meet,  adieu 
to  our  mutual  comprehension  !  Will  you  make  a  com- 
pact with  me?  Was  the  first  disadvantageous  to  you? 
But  remember  it  won  you  my  esteem,  and  -it  is  a  great 
deal,  my  friend,  to  gain  an  admiration  lined  throughout 
with  esteem.  Here  is  the  compact:  write  me  your  life 
in  a  few  words  ;  then  tell  me  what  you  do  in  Paris,  day 
by  day,  with  no  reservations,  and  as  if  you  were  talking 
to  some  old  friend.  Well,  having  done  that,  I  will 
take  a  step  myself — I  will  see  you,  I  promise  you  that. 
And  it  is  a  great  deal. 

This,  dear,  is  no  intrigue,  no  adventure  ;  no  gallantry, 
as  you  men  say,  can  come  of  it,  I  warn  you  frankly. 
It  involves  my  life,  and  more  than  that,  —  something 
that  causes  me  remorse  for  the  many  thoughts  that  fly 
to  you  in  flocks  —  it  involves  my  father's  and  my 
mother's  life.  I  adore  them,  and  my  choice  must 
please  them ;  they  must  find  a  son  in  }tou. 

Tell  me,  to  what  extent  can  the  superb  spirits  of  your 
kind,  to  whom  God  has  given  the  wings  of  his  angels, 
without  always  adding  their  amiability,  —  how  far  can 
they  bend  under  a  family  yoke,  and  put  up  with  its  little 
miseries  ?  That  is  a  text  I  have  meditated  upon.  Ah  ! 
though  I  said  to  my  heart  before  I  came  to  you,  For- 
ward !  Onward  !  it  did  not  tremble  and  palpitate  any 
the  less  on  the  way  ;  and  I  did  not  conceal  from  myself 


Modeste  Mignon.  119 

the  stoniness  of  the  path  nor  the  Alpine  difficulties  I 
had  to  encounter.  I  thought  of  all  in  ni}7  long,  long 
meditations.  Do  I  not  know  that  eminent  men  like  you 
have  known  the  love  the}'  have  inspired  quite  as  well 
as  that  which  they  themselves  have  felt ;  that  they  have 
had  many  romances  in  their  lives,  —  j^ou  particularly, 
who  send  forth  those  airy  visions  of  your  soul  that 
women  rush  to  buy?  Yet  still  I  cried  to  myself,  "  On- 
ward ! "  because  I  have  studied,  more  than  you  give  me 
credit  for,  the  geography  of  the  great  summits  of  hu- 
manity, which  you  tell  me  are  so  cold.  Did  you  not 
say  that  Goethe  and  Byron  were  the  colossi  of  egoism 
and  poetry  ?  Ah,  my  friend,  there  you  shared  a  mistake 
into  which  superficial  minds  are  apt  to  fall ;  but  in  you 
perhaps  it  came  from  generosity,  false  modesty,  or  the 
desire  to  escape  from  me.  Vulgar  minds  may  mistake 
the  effects  of  toil  for  the  development  of  personal  char- 
acter, but  you  must  not.  Neither  Lord  Byron,  nor 
Goethe,  nor  Walter  Scott,  nor  Cuvier,  nor  any  inventor, 
belongs  to  himself,  he  is  the  slave  of  his  idea.  And 
this  mysterious  power  is  more  jealous  than  a  woman ; 
it  sucks  their  blood,  it  makes  them  live,  it  makes  t 
them  die  for  its  sake.  The  visible  developments  of 
their  hidden  existence  do  seem,  in  their  results,  like 
egotism  ;  but  who  shall  dare  to  say  that  the  man  who 
has  abnegated  self  to  give  pleasure,  instruction,  or  gran- 
deur to  his  epoch,  is  an  egoist?  Is  a  mother  selfish 
when  she  immolates  all  things  to  her  child  ?  Well,  the 
detractors  of  genius  do  not  perceive  its  fecund  mater- 
nity, that  is  all.  The  life  of  a  poet  is  so  perpetual  a 
sacrifice  that  he  needs  a  gigantic  organization  to  bear 
even  the  ordinary  pleasures  of  life.     Therefore,   into 


120  Modeste   Mignon. 

what  sorrows  ma}^  he  not  fall  when,  like  Moliere,  he 
wishes  to  live  the  life  of  feeling  in  its  most  poignant 
crises ;  to  me,  remembering  his  personal  life,  Moliere's 
comedy  is  horrible. 

The  generosity  of  genius  seems  to  me  half  divine ; 
and  I  place  you  in  this  noble  family  of  alleged  egoists. 
Ah  !  if  I  had  found  self-interest,  ambition,  a  seared  na- 
ture where  I  now  can  see  my  best  loved  flowers  of  the 
soul,  you  know  not  what  long  anguish  I  should  have  had 
to  bear.  I  met  with  disappointment  before  I  was  sixteen. 
What  would  have  become  of  me  had  I  learned  at  twenty 
that  fame  is  a  lie,  that  he  whose  books  express  the  feel- 
ings hidden  in  my  heart  was  incapable  of  feeling  them' 
himself?  Oh !  my  friend,  do  you  know  what  would 
have  become  of  me  ?  Shall  I  take  you  into  the  recesses 
of  my  soul?  I  should  have  gone  to  my  father  and  said, 
"  Bring  me  the  son-in-law  whom  you  desire  ;  my  will  ab- 
dicates,— marry  me  to  whom  you  please."  And  the  man 
might  have  been  a  notary,  banker,  miser,  fool,  dullard, 
wearisome  as  a  rainy  day,  common  as  the  usher  of  a 
school,  a  manufacturer,  or  some  brave  soldier  without 
two  ideas, — he  would  have  had  a  resigned  and  atten- 
tive servant  in  me.  But  what  an  awful  suicide  !  never 
could  my  soul  have  expanded  in  the  life-giving  rays  of 
a  beloved  sun.  No  murmur  should  have  revealed  to 
my  father,  or  my  mother,  or  my  children  the  suicide  of 
the  creature  who  at  this  instant  is  shaking  her  fetters, 
casting  lightnings  from  her  eyes,  and  flying  towards  you 
with  eager  wing.  See,  she  is  there,  at  the  angle  of  your 
desk,  like  Polyhymnia,  breathing  the  air  of  your  presence, 
and  glancing  about  her  with  a  curious  eye.  Sometimes 
in  the  fields  where  my  husband  would  have  taken  me 


Modeste   Mignon.  121 

to  walk,  I  should  have  wept,  apart  and  secretly,  at  sight 
of  a  glorious  morning ;  and  in  my  heart,  or  hidden  in  a 
bureau-drawer,  I  might  have  kept  some  treasure,  the 
comfort  of  poor  girls  ill-used  by  love,  sad,  poetic  souls, 
— but  ah  !  I  have  you,  I  believe  in  you,  my  friend.  That 
belief  straightens  all  my  thoughts  and  fancies,  even  the 
most  fantastic,  and  sometimes  —  see  how  far  my  frank- 
ness leads  me  —  I  wish  I  were  in  the  middle  of  the 
book  we  are  just  beginning  ;  such  persistency  do  I  feel 
in  my  sentiments,  such  strength  in  my  heart  to  love, 
such  constanc}-  sustained  by  reason,  such  heroism  for 
the  duties  for  which  I  was  created,  —  if  indeed  love  can 
ever  be  transmuted  into  duty. 

If  you  were  able  to  follow  me  to  the  exquisite  re- 
treat) where  I  fancy  ourselves  happy,  if  }rou  knew  my 
plans  and  projects,  the  dreadful  word  "folly!"  might 
escape  you,  and  I  should  be  cruelly  punished  for  send- 
ing poetry  to  a  poet.  Yes,  I  wish  to  be  a  spring  of 
waters  inexhaustible  as  a  fertile  land  for  the  twenty 
years  that  nature  allows  me  to  shine.  I  want  to  drive 
away  satiety  by  charm.  I  mean  to  be  courageous  for 
my  friend  as  most  women  are  for  the  world.  I  wish  to 
vary  happiness.  I  wish  to  put  intelligence  into  tender- 
ness, and  to  give  piquancy  to  fidelity.  I  am  filled  with 
ambition  to  kill  the  rivals  of  the  past,  to  conjure  away 
all  outside  griefs  b}T  a  wife's  gentleness,  by  her  proud 
abnegation,  to  take  a  lifelong  care  of  the  nest,  —  such  as 
birds  can  only  take  for  a  few  weeks. 

Tell  me,  do  you  now  think  me  to  blame  for  my  first 
letter?  The  mysterious  wind  of  will  drove  me  to  you, 
as  the  tempest  brings  the  little  rose-tree  to  the  pollard 
willow.     In  your  letter,  which  I  hold  here  upon  my 


122 


Modeste   Mignon. 


heart,  you  cried  out,  like  your  ancestor  when  he  de- 
parted for  the  Crusades,  "  God  wills  it." 

Ah!  but  you  will  cry  out,  "What  a  chatterbox!" 
All  the  people  round  me  say,  on  the  contrary,  "  Made- 
moiselle is  very  taciturn." 

O.  d'Este  M. 


Modeste   Mignon.  123 


CHAPTER  XI. 

WHAT   COMES   OF   CORRESPONDENCE. 

The  foregoing  letters  seemed  very  original  to  the  per- 
sons from  whom  the  author  of  the  "  Comedy  of  Human 
Life"  obtained  them  ;  but  their  interest  in  this  duel,  this 
crossing  of  pens  between  two  minds,  may  not  be  shared. 
For  every  hundred  readers,  eight}'  might  weary  of  the 
battle.  The  respect  due  to  the  majorit}'  in  every  nation 
under  a  constitutional  government,  leads  us,  therefore, 
to  suppress  eleven  other  letters  exchanged  between 
Ernest  and  Modeste  during  the  month  of  September. 
If,  later  on,  some  flattering  majority  should  arise  to 
claim  them,  let  us  hope  that  we  can  then  find  means  to 
insert  them  in  their  proper  place. 

Urged  by  a  mind  that  seemed  as  aggressive  as  the 
heart  was  lovable,  the  truly  chivalrous  feelings  of  the 
poor  secretary  gave  themselves  free  play  in  these 
suppressed  letters,  which  seem,  perhaps,  more  beau- 
tiful than  they  really  are,  because  the  imagination  is 
charmed  by  a  sense  of  the  communion  of  two  free  souls. 
Ernest's  whole  life  was  now  wrapped  up  in  these 
sweet  scraps  of  paper ;  they  were  to  him  what  bank- 
notes are  to  a  miser ;  while  in  Modeste's  soul  a  deep 
love  took  the  place  of  her  delight  in  agitating  a  glori- 
ous life,  and  being,  in  spite  of  distance,  its  mainspring. 
Ernest's  heart  was  the  complement  of  Canalis's  glory. 


124  Modeste  Mignon. 

Alas !  it  often  takes  two  men  to  make  a  perfect  lover, 
just  as  in  literature  we  compose  a  type  by  collecting 
the  peculiarities  of  several  similar  characters.  How 
many  a  time  a  woman  has  been  heard  to  say  in  her 
own  salon  after  close  and  intimate  conversations  :  — 

"  Such  a  one  is  my  ideal  as  to  soul,  and  I  love  the 
other  who  is  only  a  dream  of  the  senses." 

The  last  letter  written  by  Modeste,  which  here  fol- 
lows, gives  us  a  glimpse  of  the  enchanted  isle  to  which 
the  meanderings  of  this  correspondence  had  led  the  two 
lovers. 

To  Monsieur  de  Canalis,  —  Be  at  Havre  next  Sun- 
day ;  go  to  church ;  after  the  morning  service,  walk 
once  or  twice  round  the  nave,  and  go  out  without 
speaking  to  any  one ;  but  wear  a  white  rose  in  your 
button-hole.  Then  return  to  Paris,  where  you  shall  re- 
ceive an  answer.  I  warn  you  that  this  answer  will  not 
be  what  you  wish ;  for,  as  I  told  you,  the  future  is  not 
yet  mine.  But  should  I  not  indeed  be  mad  and  foolish 
to  say  yes  without  having  seen  you?  When  I  have 
seen  you  I  can  say  no  without  wounding  you ;  I  can 
make  sure  that  you  shall  not  see  me. 

This  letter  had  been  sent  off  the  evening  before  the 
day  when  the  abortive  struggle  between  Dumay  and 
Modeste  had  taken  place.  The  happy  girl  was  impa- 
tiently awaiting  Sunday,  when  her  eyes  were  to  vindi- 
cate or  condemn  her  heart  and  her  actions,  —  a  solemn 
moment  in  the  life  of  any  woman,  and  which  three 
months  of  a  close  communion  of  souls  now  rendered  as 
romantic  as  the  most  imaginative  maiden  could  have 
wished.     Every  one,  except  the  mother,  had  taken  this 


Modeste   Mignon.  125 

torpor  of  expectation  for  the  calm  of  innocence.  No 
matter  how  firmly  family  laws  and  religious  precepts 
may  bind,  there  will  always  be  the  Clarissas  and  the 
Julies,  whose  souls  like  flowing  cups  o'erlap  the  brim 
under  some  spiritual  pressure.  Modeste  was  glorious 
in  the  savage  energy  with  which  she  repressed  her 
exuberant  youthful  happiness  and  remained  demurely 
quiet.  Let  us  say  frankly  that  the  memory  of  her 
sister  was  more  potent  upon  her  than  any  social  con- 
ventions ;  her  will  was  iron  in  the  resolve  to  bring  no 
grief  upon  her  father  and  her  mother.  But  what  tu- 
multuous heavirigs  were  within  her  breast !  no  wonder 
that  a  mother  guessed  them. 

On  the  following  day  Modeste  and  Madame  Dumay 
took  Madame  Mignon  about  mid-day  to  a  seat  in  the 
sun  among  the  flowers.  The  blind  woman  turned  her 
wan  and  blighted  face  toward  the  ocean ;  she  inhaled 
the  odors  of  the  sea  and  took  the  hand  of  her  daughter 
who  remained  beside  her.  The  mother  hesitated  between 
forgiveness  and  remonstrance  ere  she  put  the  important 
question  ;  for  she  comprehended  the  girl's  love  and 
recognized,  as  the  pretended  Canalis  had  done,  that 
Modeste  was  exceptional  in  nature. 

u  God  grant  that  your  father  return  in  time  !  If  he 
delays  much  longer  he  will  find  none  but  you  to  love 
him.  Modeste,  promise  me  once  more  never  to  leave 
him,"  she  said  in  a  fond  maternal  tone. 

Modeste  lifted  her  mother's  hands  to  her  lips  and 
kissed  them  gently,  replying :  "  Need  I  say  it  again?  " 

u  Ah,  my  child  !  I  did  this  thing  myself.  I  left  my 
father  to  follow  my  husband ;  and  yet  my  father  was 
all  alone ;    I  was  all  the  child  he  had.     Is  that  why 


126  Modeste  Mignon. 

God  has  so  punished  me?  What  I  ask  of  }rou  is  to 
marry  as  your  father  wishes,  to  cherish  him  in  your 
heart,  not  to  sacrifice  him  to  your  own  happiness,  but 
to  make  him  the  centre  of  your  home.  Before  losing 
my  sight,  I  wrote  him  all  my  wishes,  and  I  know  he 
will  execute  them.  I  enjoined  him  to  keep  his  property 
intact  and  in  his  own  hands ;  not  that  I  distrust  you, 
my  Modeste,  for  a  moment,  but  who  can  be  sure  of  a 
son-in-law  ?  Ah !  my  daughter,  look  at  me ;  was  I 
reasonable?  One  glance  of  the  eye  decided  my  life. 
Beauty,  so  often  deceitful,  in  my  case  spoke  true ;  but 
even  were  it  the  same  with  you,  my  poor  child,  swear 
to  me  that  you  will  let  }^our  father  inquire  into  the 
character,  the  habits,  the  heart,  and  the  previous  life 
of  the  man  you  distinguish  with  your  love  — if,  by 
chance,  there  is  such  a  man." 

"  I  will  never  marry  without  the  consent  of  my 
father,,,  answered  Modeste. 

"  You  see,  my  darling,"  said  Madame  Mignon  after 
a  long  pause,  "  that  if  I  am  dying  by  inches  through 
Bettina's  wrong-doing,  your  father  would  not  survive 
yours,  no,  not  for  a  moment.  I  know  him  ;  he  would 
put  a  pistol  to  his  head,  —  there  could  be  no  life,  no 
happiness  on  earth  for  him." 

Modeste  walked  a  few  steps  away  from  her  mother, 
but  immediately  came  back. 

"Why  did  you  leave  me?"  demanded  Madame 
Mignon. 

"  You  made  me  cr}r,  mamma,"  answered  Modeste. 

"  Ah,  my  little  darling,  kiss  me.  You  love  no  one 
here?  you  have  no  lover,  have  3-ou?"  she  asked,  hold- 
ing Modeste  on  her  lap,  heart  to  heart. 


Modeste  Mignon.  127 

"  No,  my  dear  mamma,"  said  the  little  Jesuit. 

14  Can  you  swear  it?  " 

"  Oh,  yes !  "  cried  Modeste. 

Madame  Mignon  said  no  more  ;  but  she  still  doubted. 

"  At  least,  if  you  do  choose  your  husband,  you  will 
tell  your  father?  "  she  resumed. 

" 1  promised  that  to  my  sister,  and  to  you,  mother. 
What  evil  do  yoxx  think  I  could  commit  while  I  wear 
that  ring  upon  my  finger  and  read  those  words : 
4  Think  of  Bettina  ?'     Poor  sister !  " 

At  these  words  a  truce  of  silence  came  between  the 
pair;  the  mother's  blighted  eyes  rained  tears  which 
Modeste  could  not  check,  though  she  threw  herself 
upon  her  knees,  and  cried:  "  Forgive  me !  oh,  forgive 
me,  mother ! " 

At  this  instant  the  excellent  Dumay  was  coming  up 
the  hill  of  Ingouville  on  the  double-quick,  —  a  fact  quite 
abnormal  in  the  present  life  of  the  cashier. 

Three  letters  had  brought  ruin  to  the  Mignons ;  a 
single  letter  now  restored  their  fortunes.  Dumay  had 
received  from  a  sea-captain  just  arrived  from  the  China 
Seas  the  following  letter  containing  the  first  news  of  his 
patron  and  friend,  Charles  Mignon  :  — 

To  Monsieur  Jean  Dumay  : 

My  dear  Dumay,  —  I  shall  quickly  follow,  barring  the 
chances  of  the  vo}age,  the  vessel  which  carries  this  let- 
ter. In  fact,  I  should  have  taken  it,  but  I  did  not  wish 
to  leave  my  own  ship  to  which  I  am  accustomed. 

I  told  you  that  no  news  was  to  be  good  news.  But 
the  first  words  of  this  letter  ought  to  make  you  a  happy 
man.     I  have  made  seven  millions  at  the  least.     I  am 


128  Modeste   Mignon. 


\ 


bringing  back  a  large  part  of  it  in  indigo,  one  third  in 
safe  London  securities,  and  another  third  in  good  solid 
gold.  Your  remittances  helped  me  to  make  the  sum  I 
had  settled  in  my  own  mind  much  sooner  than  I  ex- 
pected. I  wanted  two  millions  for  my  daughters  and 
a  competence  for  myself. 

I  have  been  engaged  in  the  opium  trade  with  the 
largest  houses  in  Canton,  all  ten  times  richer  than  ever 
I  was.  You  have  no  idea,  in  Europe,  what  these  rich 
East  India  merchants  are.  I  went  to  Asia  Minor  and 
purchased  opium  at  low  prices,  and  from  thence  to  Can- 
ton where  I  delivered  my  cargoes  to  the  companies  who 
control  the  trade.  My  last  expedition  was  to  the  Phi- 
lippine Islands  where  I  exchanged  opium  for  indigo  of 
the  first  quality.  In  fact,  I  may  have  half  a  million 
more  than  I  stated,  for  I  reckoned  the  indigo  at  what 
it  cost  me.  I  have  alwa3rs  been  well  in  health  ;  not  the 
slightest  illness.  That  is  the  result  of  working  for  one's 
children.  Since  the  second  year  I  have  owfted  a  pretty 
little  brig  of  seven  hundred  tons,  called  the  M  Mignon." 
She  is  built  of  oak,  double-planked,  and  copper-fastened  ; 
and  all  the  interior  fittings  were  done  to  suit  me.  She 
is,  in  fact,  an  additional  piece  of  property. 

A  sea-life  and  the  active  habits  required  hy  my  busi- 
ness have  kept  me  in  good  health.  To  tell  }Tou  all  this 
is  the  same  as  telling  it  to  my  two  daughters  and  my 
dear  wife.  I  trust  that  the  wretched  man  who  took 
away  my  Bettina  deserted  her  when  he  heard  of  my 
ruin ;  and  that  I  shall  find  the  poor  lost  lamb  at  the 
Chalet.  My  three  dear  women  and  my  Dumay  !  All 
four  of  you  have  been  ever  present  in  my  thoughts  for 
the  last  three  years.    You  are  a  rich  man,  now,  Dumay. 


Modeste   Mignon.  1£9 

Your  share,  outside  of  my  own  fortune,  amounts  to 
five  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  francs,  for  which  I 
send  you  herewith  a  check,  which  can  only  be  paid  to 
you  in  person  by  the  Mongenods,  who  have  been  duly 
advised  from  New  York. 

A  few  short  months,  and  I  shall  see  you  all  again, 
and  all  well,  I  trust.  My  dear  Duma}7,  if  I  write  this 
letter  to  you  it  is  because  ^Ijam^jixiotts  to  keep  my  for- 
tune a  secret  for  the  present.  I  therefore  leave  to  you 
the  happiness  of  preparing  my  dear  angels  for  my  re- 
turn. I  have  had  enough  of  commerce ;  and  I  am 
resolved  to  leave  Havre.  My  intention  is  to  bu}T  back 
the  estate  of  La  Bastie,  and  to  entail  it,  so  as  to  es- 
tablish an  estate  }Tielding  at  least  a  hundred  thousand 
francs  a  3'ear,  and  then  to  ask  the  king  to  grant  that  one 
of  my  sons-in-law  may  succeed  to  my  name  and  title. 
You  know,  my  poor  Duma}',  what  a  terrible  misfortune 
overtook  us  through  the  fatal  reputation  of  a  large  for- 
tune, —  my  daughter's  honor  was  lost.  I  have  therefore 
resolved  that  the  amount  of  my  present  fortune  shall 
not  be  known.  I  shall  not  disembark  at  Havre,  but  at 
Marseilles.  I  shall  sell  my  indigo,  and  negotiate  for  the 
purchase  of  La  Bastie  through  the  house  of  Mongenod 
in  Paris.  I  shall  put  my  funds  in  the  Bank  of  France 
and  return  to  the  Chalet  giving  out  that  I  have  a  con- 
siderable fortune  in  merchandise.  M}T  daughters  will 
be  supposed  to  have  two  or  three  hundred  thousand 
francs.  To  choose  which  of  my  sons-in-law  is  worthy 
to  succeed  to  my  title  and  estates  and  to  live  with  us, 
is  now  the  object  of  my  life ;  but  both  of  them  must 
be,  like  you  and  me,  honest,  loyal,  and  firm  men,  and 
absolutely  honorable. 

9 


130  Modeste   Mignon. 

My  dear  old  fellow,  I  have  never  doubted  you  for  a 
moment.  We  have  gone  through  wars  and  commerce 
together  and  now  we  will  undertake  agriculture ;  you 
shall  be  my  bailiff.  You  will  like  that,  will  yon  not? 
And  so,  old  friend,  I  leave  it  to  your  discretion  to 
tell  what  you  think  best  to  my  wife  and  daughters  ;  I 
rely  upon  your  prudence.  In  four  years  great  changes 
may  have  taken  place  in  their  characters. 

Adieu,  my  old  Dumay.  Say  tp  my  daughters  and  to 
my  wife  that  I  have  never  failed  to  kiss  them  in  my 
thoughts  morning  and  evening  since  I  left  them.  The 
second  check  for  forty  thousand  francs  herewith  en- 
closed is  for  my  wife  and  children. 

Till  we  meet.  —  Your  colonel  and  friend, 

Charles  Mignon. 

"  Your  father  is  coming,"  said  Madame  Mignon  to 
her  daughter. 

u  What  makes  you  think  so,  mamma  ?  "  asked 
Modeste. 

"  Nothing  else  could  make  Dumay  huny  himself." 

14  Victory  !  victory  !  "  cried  the  lieutenant  as  soon  as 
he  reached  the  garden  gate.  "  Madame,  the  colonel 
has  not  been  ill  a  moment ;  he  is  coming  back  —  coming 
back  on  the  'Mignon,'  a  fine  ship  of  his  own,  which 
together  with  its  cargo  is  worth,  he  tells  me,  eight  or 
nine  hundred  thousand  francs.  But  he  requires  secrecy 
from  all  of  us  ;  his  heart  is  still  wrung  by  the  misfor- 
tunes of  our  dear  departed  girl." 

"  He  has  still  to  learn  her  death,"  said  Madame 
Mignon. 

"  He  attributes  her  disaster,  and  I  think  he  is  right, 


Modeste   Mignon.  131 

to  the  rapacity  of  young  men  after  great  fortunes. 
My  poor  colonel  expects  to  find  the  lost  sheep  here. 
Let  us  be  happy  among  ourselves  but  say  nothing  to 
an}T  one,  not  even  to  Latournelle,  if  that  is  possible. 
Mademoiselle, "  he  whispered  in  Modeste's  ear,  4i  write 
to  3'our  father  and  tell  him  of  his  loss  and  also  the  ter- 
rible results  on  your  mother's  health  and  eyesight ;  pre- 
pare him  for  the  shock  he  has  to  meet.  I  'will  engage 
to  get  the  letter  into  his  hands  before  he  reaches  Havre, 
for  he  will  have  to  pass  through  Paris  on  his  way. 
Write  him  a  long  letter ;  you  have  plenty  of  time.  I 
will  take  the  letter  on  Monday ;  Monday  I  shall  pro- 
bably go  to  Paris.,, 

Modeste  was  so  afraid  that  Canalis  and  Dumay 
would  meet  that  she  started  hastily  for  the  house  to 
write  to  her  poet  and  put  off  the  rendezvous. 

"  Mademoiselle, "  said  Dumay,  in  a  very  humble  man- 
ner and  barring  Modeste's  way,  "  may  your  father  find 
his  daughter  with  no  other  feelings  in  her  heart  than 
those  she  had  for  him  and  for  her  mother  before  he  was 
obliged  to  leave  her." 

11 1  have  sworn  to  myself,  to  my  sister,  and  to  my 
mother  to  be  the  joy,  the  consolation,  and  the  glory  of 
my  father,  and  I  shall  keep  my  oath ! "  replied  Mo- 
deste with  a  haughty  and  disdainful  glance  at  Dumay. 
"  Do  not  trouble  my  delight  in  the  thought  of  my 
father's  return  with  insulting  suspicions.  You  cannot 
prevent  a  girl's  heart  from  beating — you  don't  want 
me  to  be  a  mummy,  do  you?"  she  said.  "  My  hand 
belongs  to  my  family,  but  m}r  heart  is  my  own.  If  I 
love  any  one,  my  father  and  mjT  mother  will  know  it. 
Does  that  satisfy  you,  monsieur?" 


132  Modeste   Mignon, 

"  Thank  you,  mademoiselle  ;  yon  restore  me  to  life," 
said  Dumay,  "but  you  might  still  call  me  Duma}, 
even  when  you  box  my  ears ! " 

"Swear  to  me,"  said  her  mother,  "that  you  have 
not  exchanged  a  word  or  a  look  with  any  young  man." 

"I  can  swear  that,  my  dear  mother,"  said  Modeste, 
laughing,  and  looking  at  Dumay  who  was  watching  her 
and  smiling  to  himself  like  a  mischievous  girl. 

"  She  must  be  false  indeed  if  30U  are  right,"  cried 
Dumay,  when  Modeste  had  left  them  and  gone  into  the 
house. 

"  My  daughter  Modeste  may  have  faults,"  said  her 
mother,  "but  falsehood  is  not  one  of  them;  she  is 
incapable  of  saying  what  is  not  true." 

"Well!  then  let  us  feel  easy,"  continued  Dumay, 
"  and  believe  that  misfortune  has  closed  his  account 
with  us." 

"  God  grant  it !  "  answered  Madame  Mignon.  "  You 
will  see  Aim,  Dumay  ;  but  I  shall  only  hear  him.  There 
is  much  of  sadness  in  my  joy." 


Modeste   Mignon.  133 


CHAPTER  XII. 

A  DECLARATION   OF   LOVE,  —  SET  TO   MUSIC. 

At  this  moment  Modeste,  happy  as  she  was  in  the  re- 
turn of  her  father,  was,  nevertheless,  pacing  her  room  dis- 
consolate as  Perrette  on  seeing  her  eggs  broken.  She 
had  hoped  her  father  would  bring  back  a  much  larger  for- 
tune than  Dumay  had  mentioned.  Nothing  could  satisfy 
her  new-found  ambition  on  behalf  of  her  poet  less  than 
at  least  half  the  six  millions  she  had  talked  of  in  her 
second  letter.  Trebly  agitated  by  her  two  joys  and  the 
grief  caused  by  her  comparative  poverty ,  she  seated  her- 
self at  the  piano,  that  confidant  of  so  many  young  girls, 
who  tell  out  their  wishes  and  provocations  on  the  keys, 
expressing  them  by  the  notes  and  tones  of  their  music. 
Dumay  was  talking  with  his  wife  in  the  garden  under 
the  windows,  telling  her  the  secret  of  their  own  wealth, 
and  questioning  her  as  to  her  desires  and  her  inten- 
tions. Madame  Duma}-  had,  like  her  husband,  no  other 
family  than  the  Mignons.  Husband  and  wife  agreed, 
therefore,  to  go  and  live  in  Provence,  if  the  Comte  de 
La  Bastie  really  meant  to  live  in  Provence,  and  to  leave 
their  money  to  whichever  of  Modeste's  children  might 
seem  to  need  it  most. 

"  Listen  to  Modeste,"  said  Madame  Mignon,  ad- 
dressing them.  "  None  but  a  girl  in  love  can  compose 
such  airs  without  having  studied  music." 


134  Modeste   Mignon. 

Houses  may  burn,  fortunes  be  engulfed,  fathers  re- 
turn from  distant  lands,  empires  may  crumble  away,  the 
cholera  may  ravage  cities,  but  a  maiden's  love  wings 
its  way  as  nature  pursues  hers,  or  that  alarming  acid 
which  chemistry  has  lately  discovered,  and  which  will 
presently  eat  through  the  globe,  if  nothing  stops  it. 

Modeste,  under  the  inspiration  of  her  present  situa- 
tion, was  putting  to  music  certain  stanzas  which  we  are 
compelled  to  quote  here  —  albeit  they  are  printed  in 
the  second  volume  of  the  edition  Dauriat  had  men- 
tioned—  because,  in  order  to  adapt  them  to  her  music, 
which  had  the  inexpressible  charm  of  sentiment  so  ad- 
mired in  great  singers,  Modeste  had  taken  liberties 
with  the  lines  in  a  manner  that  may  astonish  the  ad- 
mirers of  a  poet  so  famous  for  the  correctness,  some- 
times too  precise,  of  his  measures. 

THE   MAIDEN'S   SONG. 

Heart,  arise !  the  lark  is  shaking 
Sunlit  wings  that  heavenward  rise; 

Sleep  no  more;  the  violet,  waking, 
Wafts  her  incense  to  the  skies. 

Flowers  revived,  their  eyes  unclosing, 

See  themselves  in  drops  of  dew 
In  each  calyx-cup  reposing,  — 

Pearls  of  a  day  their  mirror  true. 

Breeze  divine,  the  god  of  roses, 

Passed  by  night  to  bless  their  bloom*, 

See!  for  him  each  bud  uncloses, 
Glows,  and  yields  its  rich  perfume. 


Modeste    Mignon.  135 

Then  arise !  the  lark  is  shaking 
Sunlit  wings  that  heavenward  rise; 

Nought  is  sleeping —  Heart,  awaking, 
Lift  thine  incense  to  the  skies. 

"It  is  very  pretty,"  said  Madame  Dumay.  "Mo- 
deste is  a  musician,  and  that 's  the  whole  of  it." 

c '  The  devil  is  in  her  !  "  cried  the  cashier,  into  whose 
heart  the  suspicion  of  the  mother  forced  its  way  and 
made  him  shiver. 

"  She  loves,"  persisted  Madame  Mignon. 

By  succeeding,  through  the  undeniable  testimony  of 
the  song,  in  making  the  cashier  a  sharer  in  her  belief  as 
to  the  state  of  Modeste' s  heart,  Madame  Mignon  de- 
stroyed the  happiness  the  return  and  the  prosperity  of 
his  master  had  brought  him.  The  poor  Breton  went 
down  the  hill  to  Havre  and  to  his  desk  in  Gobenheim's 
counting-room  with  a  heavy  heart ;  then,  before  return- 
ing to  dinner,  he  went  to  see  Latournelle,  to  tell  his 
fears,  and  beg  once  more  for  the  notary's  advice  and 
assistance. 

"Yes,  my  dear  friend,"  said  Dumay,  when  they 
parted  on  the  steps  of  the  notary's  door,  '  *  I  now  agree 
with  madame ;  she  loves,  —  yes,  I  am  sure  of  it ;  and 
the  devil  knows  the  rest.     I  am  dishonored." 

"Don't  make  j^ourself  unhapp}',  Duma},"  answered 
the  little  notary.  "  Among  us  all  we  can  surety  get 
the  better  of  the  little  puss  ;  sooner  or  later,  every  girl 
in  love  betrays  herself,  —  you  may  be  sure  of  that. 
But  we  wTill  talk  about  it  this  evening." 

Thus  it  happened  that  all  those  devoted  to  the 
Mignon  famity  were  fully  as  disquieted  and  uncertain 
as  they  were  before  the  old  soldier  tried  the  experiment 


136  Modeste   Mignon. 

which  he  expected  would  be  so  decisive.  The  ill-success 
of  his  past  efforts  so  stimulated  Dumay's  sense  of  dut}r, 
that  he  determined  not  to  go  to  Paris  to  see  after  his 
own  fortune  as  announced  by  his  patron,  until  he  had 
guessed  the  riddle  of  Modeste's  heart.  These  friends, 
to  whom  feelings  were  more  precious  than  interests, 
well  knew  that  unless  the  daughter  were  pure  and  in- 
nocent, the  father  would  die  of  grief  when  he  came  to 
know  the  death  of  Bettina  and  the  blindness  of  his  wife. 
The  distress  of  poor  Dnmay  made  such  an  impression 
on  the  Latournelles  that  they  even  forgot  their  parting 
with  Exupere,  whom  the}'  had  sent  off  that  morning  to 
Paris.  During  dinner,  while  the  three  were  alone, 
Monsieur  and  Madame  Latournelle  and  Butscha  turned 
the  problem  over  and  over  in  their  minds,  and  discussed 
every  aspect  of  it. 

"  If  Modeste  loved  any  one  in  Havre  she  would  have 
shown  some  fear  yesterday, "  said  Madame  Latournelle  ; 
"  her  lover,  therefore,  lives  somewhere  else." 

"  She  swore  to  her  mother  this  morning,"  said  the 
notary,  U  in  presence  of  Dumay,  that  she  had  not  ex- 
changed a  look  or  a  word  with  any  living  soul." 

"Then  she  loves  after  my  fashion!"  exclaimed 
Butscha. 

4 'And  how  is  that,  my  poor  lad?"  asked  Madame 
Latournelle. 

u  Madame,"  said  the  little  cripple,  "  I  love  alone  and 
afar  —  oh  !  as  far  as  from  here  to  the  stars." 

"  How  do  you  manage  it,  you  silly  fellow?"  said 
Madame  Latournelle,  laughing. 

U  Ah,  madame ! "  said  Butscha,  "  what  you  call  my 
hump  is  the  socket  of  my  wings." 


Modest e   Mignon.  137 

"So  that  is  the  explanation  of  your  seal,  is  it?" 
cried  the  notary. 

Butscha's  seal  was  a  star,  and  under  it  the  words 
Fulgens,  sequar,  —  "  Shining  One,  I  follow  thee,"  — 
the  motto  of  the  house  of  Chastillonest. 

"A  beautiful  woman  may  feel  as  distrustful  as  the 
ugliest,"  said  Butseha,  as  if  speaking  to  himself; 
"  Modeste  is  clever  enough  to  fear  she  may  be  loved 
only  for  her  beauty." 

Hunchbacks  are  extraordinary  creations,  due  entirely 
to  societ}T ;  for,  according  to  Nature's  plan,  feeble  or 
aborted  beings  ought  to  perish.  The  curvature  or  dis- 
tortion of  the  spinal  column  creates  in  these  outwardly 
deformed  subjects  as  it  were  a  storage-battery,  where 
the  nerve  currents  accumulate  more  abundantly  than 
under  normal  conditions, — where  they  develop,  and 
whence  they  are  emitted,  so  to  say,  in  lightning  flashes, 
to  energize  the  interior  being.  From  this,  forces  result 
which  are  sometimes  brought  to  light  by  magnetism, 
though  they  are  far  more  frequently  lost  in  the  vague 
spaces  of  the  spiritual  world.  It  is  rare  to  find  a  de- 
formed person  who  is  not  gifted  with  some  special 
faculty,  —  a  whimsical  or  sparkling  gayety  perhaps,  an 
utter  malignity,  or  an  almost  sublime  goodness.  Like 
instruments  which  the  hand  of  art  can  never  fully 
waken,  these  beings,  highly  privileged  though  they 
know  it  not,  live  within  themselves,  as  Butseha  lived, 
provided  their  natural  forces  so  magnificently  concen- 
trated have  not  been  spent  in  the  struggle  they  have 
been  forced  to  maintain,  against  tremendous  odds,  to 
keep  alive.  This  explains  many  superstitions,  the  pop- 
ular  legends   of   gnomes,    frightful   dwarfs,    deformed 


188  Modeste   Mignon. 

fairies,  —  all  that  race  of  bottles,  as  Rabelais  called 
them,  containing  elixirs  and  precious  balms. 

Butscha,  therefore,  had  very  nearly  found  the  key 
to  the  puzzle.  With  all  the  anxious  solicitude  of  a 
hopeless  lover,  a  vassal  ever  ready  to  die,  —  like  the 
soldiers  alone  and  abandoned  in  the  snows  of  Russia, 
who  still  cried  out,  "  Long  live  the  Emperor,"  —  he  med- 
itated how  to  capture  Modeste' s  secret  for  his  own  pri- 
vate knowledge.  So  thinking,  he  followed  his  patrons 
to  the  Chalet  that  evening,  with  a  cloud  of  care  upon 
his  brow :  for  he  knew  it  was  most  important  to  hide 
from  all  these  watchful  e3Tes  and  ears  the  net,  whatever 
it  might  be,  in  which  he  should  entrap  his  lady.  It 
would  have  to  be,  he  thought,  by  some  intercepted 
glance,  some  sudden  start  or  quiver,  as  when  a  surgeon 
lays  his  finger  on  a  hidden  sore.  That  evening  Goben- 
heim  did  not  appear,  and  Butscha  was  Dumay's  partner 
against  Monsieur  and  Madame  Latournelle.  During 
the  few  moments  of  Modeste's  absence,  about  nine 
o'clock,  to  prepare  for  her  mother's  bedtime,  Madame 
Mignon  and  her  friends  spoke  openly  to  one  another ; 
but  the  poor  clerk,  depressed  by  the  conviction  of 
Modeste's  love,  which  had  now  seized  upon  him  as 
upon  the  rest,  seemed  as  remote  from  the  discussion  as 
Gobenheim  had  been  the  night  before. 

"  Well,  what's  the  matter  with  you,  Butscha?"  cried 
Madame  Latournelle ;  ' '  one  would  really  think  you 
hadn't  a  friend  in  the  world." 

Tears  shone  in  the  eyes  of  the  poor  fellow,  who  was 
the  son  of  a  Swedish  sailor,  and  whose  mother  was 
dead. 

"  I  have  no  one  in  the  world  but  you,"  he  answered 


Modeste   Mignon.  139 

with  a  troubled  voice;  "and  your  compassion  is  so 
much  a  part  of  your  religion  that  I  can  never  lose  it  — 
and  I  will  never  deserve  to  lose  it." 

This  answer  struck  the  sensitive  chord  of  true  deli- 
cac}r  in  the  minds  of  all  present. 

"We  love  you,  Monsieur  Butscha,"  said  Madame 
Mignon,  with  much  feeling  in  her  voice. 

"  I've  six  hundred  thousand  francs  of  my  own,  this 
day,"  cried  Dumay,  "  and  3-011  shall  be  a  nota^  and 
the  successor  of  Latournelle." 

The  American  wife  took  the  hand  of  the  poor  hunch- 
back and  pressed  it. 

"What!  37ou  have  six  hundred  thousand  francs!" 
exclaimed  Latournelle,  pricking  up  his  ears  as  Duma3r 
let  fall  the  words;  "and  you  allow  these  ladies  to 
live  as  they  do  !  Modeste  ought  to  have  a  fine  horse  ; 
and  why  does  n't  she  continue  to  take  lessons  in  music, 
and  painting,  and  —  " 

"Why,  he  has  only  had  the  mone3r  a  few  hours!" 
cried  the  little  wife. 

"  Hush  !  "  murmured  Madame  Mignon. 

While  these  words  were  exchanged,  Butscha's  august 
mistress  turned  towards  him,  preparing  to  make  a 
speech :  — 

"  M3r  son,"  she  said,  "  you  are  so  surrounded  03-  true 
affection  that  I  never  thought  how  m3T  thoughtless 
use  of  that  familiar  phrase  might  be  construed  ;  but 
3'ou  must  thank  me  for  m3T  little  blunder,  because  it 
has  served  to  show  3'ou  what  friends  you?  noble  qua- 
lities have  won." 

"  Then  3'oumust  have  news  from  Monsieur  Mignon," 
resumed  the  notary. 


140  Modeste    Mignon. 

"  He  is  on  his  way  home,"  said  Madame  Mignon  : 
u  but  let  us  keep  the  secret  to  ourselves.  When 
husband  learns  how  faithful  Butscha  has  been  to  us, 
how  he  has  shown  the  wannest  and  most  disinterested 
friendship  when  others  have  given  us  the  cold  shoulder, 
he  will  not  let  }Tou  alone  provide  for  him,  Dumay. 
And  so,  my  friend,"  she  added,  turning  her  blind  face 
toward  Butscha;  "  you  can  begin  at  once  to  negotiate 
with  Latournelle." 

44  He's  of  legal  age,  twenty-five  and  a  half  years. 
As  for  me,  it  will  be  paying  a  debt,  my  boy,  to  make 
the  purchase  easy  for  you,"  said  the  notary. 

Butscha  was  kissing  Madame  Mignon's  hand,  and 
his  face  was  wet  with  tears  as  Modeste  opened  the 
door  of  the  salon. 

"What  are  you  doing  to  my  Black  Dwarf?"  she 
demanded.     "  Who  is  making  him  unhappy?" 

"  Ah  !  Mademoiselle  Modeste,  do  we  luckless  fellows, 
cradled  in  misfortune,  ever  weep  for  grief?  They  have 
just  shown  me  as  much  affection  as  I  could  feel  for 
them  if  they  were  indeed  my  own  relations.  I  'm  to  be 
a  notary  ;  I  shall  be  rich.  Ha  !  ha  !  the  poor  Butscha 
may  become  the  rich  Butscha.  You  don't  know  what 
audacity  there  is  in  this  abortion,"  he  cried. 

With  that  he  gave  himself  a  resounding  blow  on  the 
cavity  of  his  chest  and  took  up  a  position  before  the 
fireplace,  after  casting  a  glance  at  Modeste,  which 
slipped  like  a  ray  of  light  between  his  heavy  half- closed 
eyelids.  He  perceived,  in  this  unexpected  incident,  a 
chance  of  interrogating  the  heart  of  his  sovereign. 
Dumay  thought  for  a  moment  that  the  .clerk  dared  to 
aspire  to  Modeste,  and  he  exchanged  a  rapid  glance  with 


Modeste   Mignon.  141 

the  others,  who  understood  him,  and  began  to  eye  the 
little  man  with  a  species  of  terror  mingled  with  curiosity. 

44 1,  too,  have  my  dreams,"  said  Butscha,  not  taking 
his  e}7es  from  Modeste. 

The  young  girl  lowered  her  eyelids  with  a  movement 
that  was  a  revelation  to  the  young  man. 

44  You  love  romance,"  he  continued,  addressing  her. 
44  Let  me,  in  this  moment  of  happiness,  tell  you  mine  ; 
and  you  shall  tell  me  in  return  whether  the  conclusion 
of  the  tale  I  have  invented  for  my  life  is  possible. f^fo 
me  wealth  would  bring  greater  happiness  than  to  other 
men  ;  for  the  highest  happiness  I  can  imagine  would 
be  to  enrich  the  one  I  loved.  You,  mademoiselle,  who 
know  so  man}T  things,  tell  me  if  it  is  possible  for  a  man 
to  make  himself  beloved  independently  of  his  person, 
be  it  handsome  or  ugly,  and  for  his  spirit  only?  " 

Modeste  raised  her  e3Tes  and  looked  at  Butscha.  It 
was  a  piercing  and  questioning  glance ;  for  she  shared 
Duinay's  suspicion  of  Butscha's  motive. 

44  Let  me  be  rich,  and  I  will  seek  some  beautiful 
poor  girl,  abandoned  like  n^self,  who  has  suffered,  who 
knows  what  misery  is.  I  will  write  to  her  and  console 
her,  and  be  her  guardian  spirit ;  she  shall  read  my 
heart,  my  soul ;  she  shall  possess  my  double  wealth, 
my  two  wealths,  —  my  gold,  delicately  offered,  and  my 
thought  robed  in  all  the  splendor  which  the  accident  of 
birth  has  denied  to  my  grotesque  body.  Bat  I  myself 
shall  remain  hidden  like  the  cause  that  science  seeks. 
God  himself  ma}'  not  be  glorious  to  the  eye.  Well, 
naturally,  the  maiden  will  be  curious  ;  she  will  wish  to 
see  me  ;  but  I  shall  tell  her  that  I  am  a  monster  of 
ugliness ;  I  shall  picture  m}  self  hideous." 


142  Modeste   Mignon* 

At  these  words  Modeste  gave  Butscha  a  glance  that 
looked  him  through  and  through.  If  she  had  said 
aloud,  "What  do  you  know  of  my  love?"  she  could 
not  have  been  more  explicit. 

"  If  I  have  the  honor  of  being  loved  for  the  poem 
of  my  heart,  if  some  day  such  love  may  make  a 
woman  think  me  only  slightly  deformed,  I  ask  you, 
mademoiselle,  shall  I  not  be  happier  than  the  hand- 
somest of  men,  —  as  happy  as  a  man  of  genius  beloved 
by  some  celestial  being  like  yourself?  " 

The  color  which  suffused  the  young  girl's  face  told 
the  cripple  nearty  all  he  sought  to  know. 

"  Well,  if  that  be  so,"  he  went  on,  "if  we  enrich  the 
one  we  love,  if  we  please  the  spirit  and  withdraw  the 
body,  is  not  that  the  way  to  make  one's  self  beloved  ? 
At  any  rate  it  is  the  dream  of  your  poor  dwarf,  —  a 
dream  of  yesterday ;  for  to-day  your  mother  gives  me 
the  key  to  future  wealth  by  promising  me  the  means 
of  buying  a  practice.  But  before  I  become  another 
Gobenheim,  I  seek  to  know  whether  this  dream  could 
be  really  carried  out.  What  do  you  say,  mademoiselle, 
you  f  " 

Modeste  was  so  astonished  that  she  did  not  notice 
the  question.  The  trap  of  the  lover  was  much  better 
baited  than  that  of  the  soldier,  for  the  poor  girl  was 
rendered  speechless. 

"Poor  Butscha!"  whispered  Madame  Latournelle 
to  her  husband.     "  Do  you  think  he  is  going  mad?  " 

"  You  want  to  realize  the  story  of  Beauty  and  the 
Beast,"  said  Modeste  at  length ;  l  c  but  you  forget  that 
the  Beast  turned  into  Prince  Charming." 

"  Do  you  think  so?  "  said  the  dwarf.     "  Now  I  have 


Modeste   Mignon.  143 

always  thought  that  that  transformation  meant  the 
phenomenon  of  the  soul  made  visible,  obliterating  the 
form  under  the  light  of  the  spirit.  If  I  were  not  loved 
I  should  stay  hidden,  that  is  all.  You  and  }ours,  ma- 
dame,"  he  continued,  addressing  his  mistress,  "  in- 
stead of  having  a  dwarf  at  your  service,  will  now  have 
a  life  and  a  fortune." 

So  saying,  Butscha.  resumed  his  seat,  remarking  to  the 
three  whist- players  with  an  assumption  of  calmness, 
44  Whose  deal  is  it?  "  but  within  his  soul  he  whispered 
sadly  to  himself:  "  She  wants  to  be  loved  for  herself; 
she  corresponds  with  some  pretended  great  man ;  how 
far  has  it  gone  ?  " 

44  Dear  mamma,  it  is  nearly  ten  o'clock,"  said 
Modeste. 

Madame  Mignon  said  good-night  to  her  friends,  and 
went  to  bed. 

They  who  wish  to  love  in  secret  may  have  Pyrenean 
hounds,  mothers,  Dumays,  and  Latournelles  to  spy 
upon  them,  and  yet  not  be  in  any  danger ;  but  when  it 
comes  to  a  lover  !  —  ah  !  that  is  diamond  cut  diamond, 
flame  against  flame,  mind  to  mind,  an  equation  whose 
terms  are  mutual. 

On  Sunday  morning  Butscha  arrived  at  the  Chalet 
before  Madame  Latournelle,  who  alwa}'s  came  to  take 
Modeste  to  church,  and  he  proceeded  to  blockade  the 
house  in  expectation  of  the  postman. 

44  Have  you  a  letter  for  Mademoiselle  Mignon?  "  he 
said  to  that  humble  functionary  when  he  appeared. 

44  No,  monsieur,  none." 

44  This  house  has  been  a  good  customer  to  the  post 
of  late,"  remarked  the  clerk. 


144  Modeste   Mignon. 

"  You  may  well  say  that,"  replied  the  man. 

Modeste  both  heard  and  saw  the  little  colloquy  from 
her  chamber  window,  where  she  always  posted  herself 
behind  the  blinds  at  this  particular  hour  to  watch  for 
the  postman.  She  ran  downstairs,  went  into  the  little 
garden,  and  called  in  an  imperative  voice :  — 

"  Monsieur  Butscha  !  " 

"  Here  am  I,  mademoiselle,"  said  the  cripple,  reach- 
ing the  gate  as  Modeste  herself  opened  it. 

"  Will  you  be  good  enough  to  tell  me  whether  among 
your  various  titles  to  a  woman's  affection  you  count 
that  of  the  shameless  spying  in  which  you  are  now 
engaged?"  demanded  the  girl,  endeavoring  to  crush 
her  slave  with  the  glance  and  gesture  of  a  queen. 

u  Yes,  mademoiselle,"  he  answered  proudly.  "  Ah  ! 
I  never  expected,"  he  continued  in  a  low  tone,  "that 
the  grub  could  be  of  service  to  a  star,  —  but  so  it  is. 
Would  you  rather  that  your  mother  and  Monsieur  Du- 
ma}r  and  Madame  Latournelle  had  guessed  your  secret 
than  one,  excluded  as  it  were  from  life,  who  seeks  to 
be  to  you  one  of  these  flowers  that  you  cut  and  wear 
for  a  moment  ?  They  all  know  you  love  ;  but  I,  I 
alone,  know  how.  Use  me  as  30U  would  a  vigilant 
watch-dog;  I  will  obey  you,  protect  you,  and  never 
bark  ;  neither  will  I  condemn  you.  I  ask  only  to  be 
of  service  to  you.  Your  father  has  made  Duma}' 
keeper  of  the  hen-roost,  take  Butscha  to  watch  outside, 
—  poor  Butscha,  who  does  n't  ask  for  anything,  not  so 
much  as  a  bone." 

"Well,  I'll  give  you  a  trial,"  said  Modeste,  whose 
strongest  desire  was  to  get  rid  of  so  clever  a  watcher. 
"  Please  go  at  once  to  all  the  hotels  in  Graville  and  in 


Modeste   Mignon.  145 

Havre,  and  ask  if  a  gentleman  has  arrived  from  Eng- 
land named  Monsieur  Arthur  —  " 

"  Listen  to  me,  mademoiselle,"  said  Butscha,  inter- 
rupting Modeste  respectfully.  "  I  will  go  and  take  a 
walk  on  the  seashore,  for  you  don't  want  me  to  go 
to  church  to-day ;  that 's  what  it  is." 

Modeste  looked  at  her  dwarf  with  a  perfectly  stupid 
astonishment. 

"Mademoiselle,  you  have  wrapped  }'our  face  in 
cotton-wool  and  a  silk  handkerchief,  but  there  's  noth- 
ing the  matter  with  you ;  and  you  have  put  that  thick 
veil  on  your  bonnet  to  see  some  one  yourself  without 
being  seen." 

"  Where  did  you  acquire  all  that  perspicacity?" 
cried  Modeste,  blushing. 

"  Moreover,  mademoiselle,  you  have  not  put  on  your 
corset ;  a  cold  in  the  head  would  n't  oblige  you  to  dis- 
figure your  waist  and  wear  half  a  dozen  petticoats,  nor 
hide  your  hands  in  these  old  gloves,  and  your  pretty 
feet  in  those  hideous  shoes,  nor  dress  jourself  like  a 
beggar-woman,  nor  —  " 

14  That 's  enough,"  she  said.  u  How  am  I  to  be  cer- 
tain that  you  will  obey  me  ?  " 

44  My  master  is  obliged  to  go  to  Sainte-Adresse.  He 
does  not  like  it,  but  he  is  so  truly  good  he  won't  deprive 
me  of  my  Sunday ;  I  will  offer  to  go  for  him." 

11  Go,  and  I  will  trust  you." 

u  You  are  sure  I  can  do  nothing  for  you  in  Havre  ? 

u  Nothing.  Hear  me,  mysterious  dwarf,  —  look," 
she  continued,  pointing  to  the  cloudless  sky ;  u  can  you 
see  a  single  trace  of  that  bird  that  flew  by  just  now? 
No;  well  then,  my  actions  are  pure  as  the  air  is  pure, 

10 


146  Modeste    Mignon. 

and  leave  no  stain  behind  them.  Yoa  may  reassure 
Dumay  and  the  Latournelles,  and  my  mother.  That 
hand/'  she  said,  holding  up  a  pretty  delicate  hand,  with 
the  points  of  the  rosy  fingers,  through  which  the  light 
shone,  slightly  turning  back,  \\  will  never  be  given,  it 
will  never  even  be  kissed  by  what  people  call  a  lover 
until  my  father  has  returned." 

"  Why  don't  you  want  me  in  the  church  to-day?  " 

"  Do  you  venture  to  question  me  after  all  I  have 
done  you  the  honor  to  say,  and  to  ask  of  you?" 

Butscha  boweel  without  another  word,  and  departed 
to  find  his  master,  in  all  the  rapture  of  being  taken  into 
the  service  of  his  goddess. 

Half  an  hour  later,  Monsieur  and  Madame  Latour- 
nelle  came  to  fetch  Modeste,  who  complained  of  a  hor- 
rible toothache. 

"  I  really  have  not  had  the  courage  to  dress  myself," 
she  said. 

"  Well  then,"  replied  the  worthy  chaperone,  "  stay  at 
home." 

"Oh,  no!  "  said  Modeste.  "  I  would  rather  not.  I 
have  bundled  myself  up,  and  I  don't  think  it  will  do 
me  any  harm  to  go  out." 

And  Mademoiselle  Mignon  marched  off  beside  La- 
tournelle,  refusing  to  take  his  arm  lest  she  should  be 
questioned  about  the  outward  trembling  which  betrayed 
her  inward  agitation  at  the  thought  of  at  last  seeing 
her  great  poet.  One  look,  the  first,  —  was  it  not  about 
to  decide  her  fate? 


Modeste  Mignon.  147 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

A   FULL-LENGTH    PORTRAIT   OF    MONSIEUR   DE   LjA   BRIERE. 

Is  there  in  the  life  of  man  a  more  delightful  moment 
than  that  of  a  first  rendezvous  ?  Are  the  sensations 
then  hidden  at  the  bottom  of  our  hearts  and  finding 
their  first  expression  ever  renewed?  Can  we  feel  again 
the  nameless  pleasures  that  we  felt  when,  like  Ernest 
de  La  Briere,  we  looked  up  our  sharpest  razors,  our 
finest  shirt,  an  irreproachable  collar,  and  our  best 
clothes  ?  We  deify  the  garments  associated  with  that 
all-supreme  moment.  We  weave  within  us  poetic  fan- 
cies quite  equal  to  those  of  the  woman ;  and  the  day 
when  either  party  guesses  them  they  take  wings  to 
themselves  and  fly  away.  Are  not  such  things  like  the 
flower  of  wild  fruits,  bitter-sweet,  grown  in  the  heart 
of  a  forest,  the  joy  of  the  scant  sun-ra}s,  the  joy, 
as  Canalis  says  in  the  "  Maiden's  Song,"  of  the  plant 
itself  whose  eyes  unclosing  see  its  own  image  within 
its  breast? 

Such  emotions,  now  taking  place  in  La  Briere,  tend 
to  show  that,  like  other  poor  fellows  for  whom  life  be- 
gins in  toil  and  care,  he  had  never  yet  been  loved. 
Arriving  at  Havre  overnight,  he  had  gone  to  bed  at 
once,  like  a  true  coquette,  to  obliterate  all  traces  of 
fatigue;  and"  now,  after  taking  his  bath,  he  had  put 
himself  into  a  costume  carefully  adapted  to  show  him 


148  Modeste    Mignon. 


off  to  the  best  advantage.  This  is,  perhaps,  the  right 
moment  to  exhibit  a  full-length  portrait  of  him,  if  only 
to  justify  the  last  letter  that  Modeste  was  still  to  write 
to  him. 

Born  of  a  good  family  in  Toulouse,  and  allied  by 
marriage  to  the  minister  who  first  took  him  under  his 
protection,  Ernest  had  that  air  of  good-breeding  which 
comes  of  an  education  begun  in  the  cradle ;  and  the 
habit  of  managing  business  affairs  gave  him  a  certain 
sedateness  which  was  not  pedantic,  —  though  pedantry 
is  the  natural  outgrowth  of  premature  gravity.  He  was 
of  ordinary  height ;  his  face,  which  won  upon  all  who 
saw  him  by  its  delicacy  and  sweetness,  was  warm  in  the 
flesh-tints,  though  without  color,  and  relieved  by  a  small 
moustache  and  imperial  a  la  Mazarin.  Without  this 
evidence  of  virility  he  might  have  resembled  a  3'oung 
woman  in  disguise,  so  refined  was  the  shape  of  his  face 
and  the  cut  of  his  lips,  so  feminine  the  transparent 
ivory  of  a  set  of  teeth,  regular  enough  to  have  seemed 
artificial.  Add  to  these  womanly  points  a  habit  of 
speech  as  gentle  as  the  expression  of  the  face ;  as 
gentle,  too,  as  the  blue  eyes  wTith  their  Turkish  eye- 
lids, and  you  will  readily  understand  how  it  was  that 
the  minister  occasionally  called  his  young  secretary 
Mademoiselle  de  La  Briere.  The  full,  clear  forehead, 
well  framed  by  abundant  black  hair,  was  dreamy,  and 
did  not  contradict  the  character  of  the  face,  which  was 
altogether  melancholy.  The  prominent  arch  of  the 
upper  eyelid,  though  very  beautifully  cut,  overshad- 
owed the  glance  of  the  eye,  and  added  a  physical  sad- 
ness, —  if  we  may  so  call  it,  —  produced  by  the  droop  of 
the  lid  over  the  eyeball.     This  inward  doubt  or  eclipse 


Modeste    Mignon.  149 

—  which  is  put  into  language  by  the  word  modesty  — 
was  expressed  in  his  whole  person.  Perhaps  we  shall 
be  able  to  make  his  appearance  better  understood  if  we 
say  that  the  logic  of  design  required  greater  length  in 
the  oval  of  his  head,  more  space  between  the  chin, 
which  ended  abruptly,  and  the  forehead,  which  was  re- 
duced in  height  by  the  way  in  which  the  Jiair  grew. 
The  face  had,  in  short,  a  rather  compressed  appear- 
ance. Hard  work  had  already  drawn  furrows  between 
the  eyebrows,  which  were  somewhat  too  thick  and  too 
near  together,  like  those  of  a  jealous  nature.  Though 
La  Briere  was  then  slight,  he  belonged  to  the  class  of 
temperaments  which  begin,  after  they  are  thirty,  to  take 
on  an  unexpected  amount  of  flesh. 

The  young  man  would  have  seemed  to  a  student  of 
French  history  a  very  fair  representative  of  the  royal 
and  almost  inconceivable  figure  of  Louis  XIII.,  —  that 
historical  figure  of  melancholy  modesty  without  known 
cause  ;  pallid  beneath  the  crown  ;  loving  the  dangers  of 
war  and  the  fatigues  of  hunting,  but  hating  work ;  timid 
with  his  mistress  to  the  extent  of  keeping  away  from 
her ;  so  indifferent  as  to  allow  the  head  of  his  friend  to 
be  cut  off,  —  a  figure  that  nothing  can  explain  but  his 
remorse  for  having  avenged  his  father  on  his  mother. 
Was  he  a  Catholic  Hamlet,  or  merely  the  victim  of  in- 
curable disease  ?  But  the  undying  worm  which  gnawed 
at  the  king's  vitals  was  in  Ernest's  case  simply  distrust 
of  himself,  —  the  timidity  of  a  man  to  whom  no  woman 
had  ever  said,  u  Ah,  how  I  love  thee !"  and,  above  all, 
the  spirit  of  self-devotion  without  an  object.  After 
hearing  the  knell  of  the  monarch}7  in  the  fall  of  his 
patron's  ministry,  the  poor  fellow  had  next  fallen  upon 


150  Modeste   Mignon. 

a  rock  covered  with  exquisite  mosses,  named  Canalis ; 
he  was,  therefore,  still  seeking  a  power  to  love,  and 
this  spaniel-like  search  for  a  master  gave  him  out- 
wardly the  air  of  a  king  who  has  met  with  his.  This 
play  of  feeling,  and  a  general  tone  of  suffering  in  the 
young  man's  face  made  it  more  really  beautiful  than  he 
was  himself  aware  of;  for  he  had  always  been  annoyed 
to  find  himself  classed  by  women  among  the  "  handsome 
disconsolate,"  —  a  class  which  has  passed  out  of  fashion 
in  these  days,  when  every  man  seeks  to  blow  his  own 
trumpet  and  put  himself  in  the  advance. 

The  self-distrustful  Ernest  now  rested  his  immediate 
hopes  on  the  fashionable  clothes  he  intended  to  wear. 
He  put  on,  for  this  sacred  interview,  where  everything 
depended  on  a  first  impression,  a  pair  of  black  trousers 
and  carefully  polished  boots,  a  sulphur-colored  waist- 
coat, which  left  to  sight  an  exquisitely  fine  shirt  with 
opal  buttons,  a  black  cravat,  and  a  small  blue  surtout 
coat  which  seemed  glued  to  his  back  and  shoulders  by 
some  newly-invented  process.  The  ribbon  of  the  Le- 
gion of  honor  was  in  his  buttonhole.  He  wore  a  well- 
fitting  pair  of  kid  gloves  of  the  Florentine  bronze  color, 
and  carried  his  cane  and  hat  in  the  left  hand  with  a 
gesture  and  air  that  was  worthy  of  the  Grand  Mon- 
arch, and  enabled  him  to  show,  as  the  sacred  precincts 
required,  his  bare  head  with  the  light  falling  on  its 
carefully  arranged  hair.  He  stationed  himself  before 
the  service  began  in  the  church  porch,  from  whence  he 
could  examine  the  church,  and  the  Christians  —  more 
particularly  the  female  Christians  —  who  dipped  their 
fingers  in  the  holy  water. 

An  inward  voice  cried  to  Modeste  as  she  entered, 


Modeste   Mignon.  151 

"  It  is  lie  !  "  That  surtout,  and  indeed  the  whole  bear- 
ing of  the  young  man  were  essentially  Parisian  ;  the 
ribbon,  the  gloves,  the  cane,  the  very  perfume  of  his 
hair  were  not  of  Havre.  So  when  La  Briere  turned 
about  to  examine  the  tall  and  imposing  Madame  La- 
tournelle,  the  notary,  and  the  bundled-up  (expression 
sacred  to  women)  figure  of  Modeste,  the  poor  child, 
though  she  had  carefully  tutored  herself  for  the  event,  re- 
ceived a  violent  blow  on  her  heart  when  her  eyes  rested 
on  this  poetic  figure,  illuminated  by  the  full  light  of  day 
as  it  streamed  through  the  open  door.  She  could  not 
be  mistaken ;  a  small  white  rose  nearly  hid  the  ribbon 
of  the  Legion.  Would  he  recognize  his  unknown  mis- 
tress muffled  in  an  old  bonnet  with  a  double  veil? 
Modeste  was  so  in  fear  of  love's  clairvoyance  that  she 
began  to  stoop  in  her  walk  like  an  old  woman. 

"Wife,"  said  little  Latournelle  as  they  took  their 
seats,  "  that  gentleman  does  not  belong  to  Havre." 

"  So  many  strangers  come  here,"  answered  his  wife. 

"But,"  said  the  notary,  "strangers  never  come  to 
look  at  a  church  like  ours,  which  is  less  than  two  centu- 
ries old." 

Ernest  remained  in  the  porch  throughout  the  service 
without  seeing  any  woman  who  realized  his  hopes. 
Modeste,  on  her  part,  could  not  control  the  trembling 
of  her  limbs  until  Mass  was  nearly  over.  She  was  in 
the  grasp  of  a  joy  that  none  but  she  herself  could  de- 
pict. At  last  she  heard  the  foot-fall  of  a  gentleman  on 
the  pavement  of  the  aisle.  The  service  over,  La  Briere 
was  making  a  circuit  of  the  church,  where  no  one  now 
remained  but  the  punctiliously  pious,  whom  he  proceeded 
to  subject  to  a  shrewd  and  keen  analysis.     Ernest  no- 


152  Modeste    Mignon. 

ticed  that  a  pra\rer-book  shook  violently  in  the  hands 
of  a  veiled  woman  as  he  passed  her ;  as  she  alone 
kept  her  face  hidden  his  suspicions  were  aroused,  and 
then  confirmed  by  Modeste's  dress,  which  the  lover's 
eye  now  scanned  and  noted.  He  left  the  church  with 
the  Latournelles  and  followed  them  at  a  distance  to  the 
rue  Roy  ale,  where  he  saw  them  enter  a  house  accom- 
panied by  Modeste,  whose  custom  it  was  to  stay  with 
her  friends  till  the  hour  of  vespers.  After  examining 
the  little  house,  which  was  ornamented  with  scutcheons, 
he  asked  the  name  of  the  owner,  and  was  told  that  he 
was  Monsieur  Latournelle,  the  chief  notary  in  Havre. 
As  Ernest  lounged  along  the  rue  Rojale  hoping  for  a 
glimpse  into  the  house,  Modeste  caught  sight  of  him, 
and  thereupon  declared  herself  far  too  ill  to  go  to  ves- 
pers. Poor  Ernest  thus  had  his  trouble  for  his  pains. 
He  dared  not  wander  about  Ingouville ;  moreover,  he 
made  it  a  point  of  honor  to  obey  orders,  and  he  there- 
fore went  back  to  Paris,  previously  writing  a  letter 
which  Francoise  Cochet  duly  received  on  the  morrow 
with  the  Havre  postmark. 

It  was  the  custom  of  Monsieur  and  Madame  Latour- 
nelle to  dine  at  the  Chalet  every  Sunday  when  they 
brought  back  Modeste  after  vespers.  So,  as  soon  as 
the  invalid  felt  a  little  better,  the}'  started  for  Ingou- 
ville, accompanied  by  Butscha.  Once  at  home,  the 
happy  Modeste  forgot  her  pretended  illness  and  her 
disguise,  and  dressed  herself  charmingly,  humming  as 
she  came  down  to  dinner,  — 

"  Nought  is  sleeping —  Heart !  awaking, 
Lift  thine  incense  to  the  skies." 


Modeste  Mignon.  153 

Butscha  shuddered  slightly  when  he  caught  sight  of 
her,  so  changed  did  she  seem  to  him.  The  wings  of 
love  were  fastened  to  her  shoulders ;  she  had  the  air 
of  a  nymph,  a  Psyche ;  her  cheeks  glowed  with  the 
divine  color  of  happiness. 

"  Who  wrote  the  words  to  which  you  have  put  that 
pretty  music?  "  asked  her  mother. 

"  Canalis,  mamma,"  she  answered,  flushing  ros}r  red 
from  her  throat  to  her  forehead. 

"  Canalis  !  "  cried  the  dwarf,  to  whom  the  inflections 
of  the  girl's  voice  and  her  blush  told  the  only  thing  of 
which  he  was  still  ignorant.  "  He,  that  great  poet, 
does  he  write  songs  ?  " 

u  They  are  only  simple  verses,"  she  said,  u  which  I 
have  ventured  to  set  to  German  airs." 

u  No,  no,"  interrupted  Madame  Mignon,  "the  music 
is  your  own,  my  daughter." 

Modeste,  feeling  that  she  grew  more  and  more  crim- 
son, went  off  into  the  garden,  calling  Butscha  after  her. 

"  You  can  do  me  a  great  service,"  she  said..  "  Du- 
may  is  keeping  a  secret  from  my  mother  and  me  as  to 
the  fortune  which  my  father  is  bringing  back  with  him  ; 
and  I  want  to  know  what  it  is.  Did  not  Dumay  send 
papa  when  he  first  went  away  over  five  hundred  thou- 
sand francs  ?  Yes.  Well,  papa  is  not  the  kind  of  man 
to  stay  away  four  years  and  only  double  his  capital.  It 
seems  he  is  coming  back  on  a  ship  of  his  own,  and 
Du may's  share  amounts  to  almost  six  hundred  thousand 
francs." 

"  There  's  no  need  to  question  Dumay,"  said 
Butscha.  "  Your  father  lost,  as  you  know,  about  four 
millions  when    he  went   away,   and  he  has   doubtless 


1/ 


154  Modeste   Mignon. 

recovered  them.  He  would  of  course  give  Dumay  ten 
per  cent  of  his  profits ;  the  worthy  man  admitted  the 
other  day  how  much  it  was,  and  my  master  and  I  think 
that  in  that  case  the  colonel's  fortune  must  amount  to 
six  or  seven  millions  — " 

"  Oh,  papa! "  cried  Modeste,  crossing  her  hands  on 
her  breast  and  looking  up  to  heaven,  "  twice_ypiuhave 
given  me  life  !  " 

"  Ah,  mademoiselle  !  "  said  Butscha,  "  you  love  a 
poet.  That  kind  of  man  is  more  or  less  of  a  Narcissus. 
Will  he  know  how  to  love  you?  A  phrase-maker,  al- 
ways busy  in  fitting  words  together,  must  be  a  bore. 
Mademoiselle,  a  poet  is  no  more  poetry  than  a  seed  is 
a  flower." 

"  Butscha,  I  never  saw  so  handsome  a  man." 

"  Beauty  is  a  veil  which  often  serves  to  hide 
imperfections." 

"  He  has  the  most  angelic  heart  of  heaven  —  " 

"  I  pray  God  you  may  be  right,"  said  the  dwarf,  clasp- 
ing his  hands,  u  —  and  happy  !  That  man  shall  have, 
as  you  have,  a  servant  in  Jean  Butscha.  I  will  not  be 
notary  ;  I  shall  give  that  up  ;  I  shall  study  the  sciences." 

"Why?" 

"  Ah,  mademoiselle,  to  train  up  your  children,  if 
you  will  deign  to  make  me  their  tutor.  But,  oh !  if 
you  would  only  listen  to  some  advice.  Let  me  take 
up  this  matter  ,*  let  me  look  into  the  life  and  habits  of 
this  man,  —  find  out  if  he  is  kind,  or  bad-tempered,  or 
gentle,  if  he  commands  the  respect  which  you  merit  in 
a  husband,  if  he  is  able  to  love  utterly,  preferring  3rou 
to  everything,  even  his  own  talent  —  " 

"  What  does  that  signify  if  I  love  him?" 


Modeste   Mignon.  155 

"  Ah,  true !  "  cried  the  dwarf. 

At  that  instant  Madame  Mignon  was  saying  to  her 
friends,  — 

u  My  daughter  saw  the  man  she  loves  this  morning." 

"  Then  it  must  have  been  that  sulphur  waistcoat 
which  puzzled  you  so,  Latournelle,"  said  his  wife. 
"  The  young  man  had  a  pretty  white  rose  in  his 
buttonhole.,, 

"  Ah  !  "  sighed  the  mother,  "the  sign  of  recognition." 

"  And  he  also  wore  the  ribbon  of  an  officer  of  the 
Legion  of  honor.  He  is  a  charming  }Toung  man.  But 
we  are  all  deceiving  ourselves ;  Modeste  never  raised 
her  veil,  and  her  clothes  were  huddled  on  like  a  beg- 
gar-woman's —  " 

"  And  she  said  she  was  ill,"  cried  the  notary ;  "  but 
she  has  taken  off  her  mufflings  and  is  just  as  well  as 
she  ever  was.  " 

"  It  is  incomprehensible  !  "  said  Dumay. 

"  Not  at  all,"  said  the  notary;  "it  is  now  as  clear 
as  day." 

"  My  child,"  said  Madame  Mignon  to  Modeste,  as 
she  came  into  the  room,  followed  by  Butscha,  u  did  yoxx 
see  a  well-dressed  young  man  at  church  this  morning, 
with  a  white  rose  in  his  button-hole  ?  " 

"  I  saw  him,"  said  Butscha  quickly,  perceiving  by 
everybody's  strained  attention  that  Modeste  was  likely 
to  fall  into  a  trap.  "  It  was  Grindot,  the  famous  ar- 
chitect, with  whom  the  town  is  in  treaty  for  the  resto- 
ration of  the  church.  He  has  just  come  from  Paris, 
and  I  met  him  this"  morning  examining  the  exterior  as 
I  was  on  n^  way  to  Sainte-Adresse." 

"Oh,  an  architect,  was  he?    he  puzzled  me,"  said 


i 


156  Modeste   Mlgnon. 

Modeste,  for  whom  Butscha  had  thus  gained  time  to 
recover  herself. 

Dumay  looked  askance  at  Butscha.  Modeste,  fully 
warned,  recovered  her  impenetrable  composure.  Du- 
may's  distrust  was  now  thoroughly  aroused,  and  he 
resolved  to  go  to  the  mayor's  office  early  in  the  morn- 
ing and  ascertain  if  the  architect  had  realty  been  in 
Havre  the  previous  day.  Butscha,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  equally  determined  to  go  to  Paris  and  find  out 
something  about  Canalis. 

Gobenheim  came  to  pla}r  whist,  and  by  his  presence 
subdued  and  compressed  all  this  fermentation  of  feel- 
ings. Modeste  awaited  her  mother's  bedtime  with  im- 
patience. She  intended  to  write,  but  never  did  so 
except  at  night.  Here  is  the  letter  which  love  dictated 
to  her  while  all  the  world  was  sleeping :  — 

To  Monsieur  de  Canalis,  —  Ah !  my  friend,  my 
well- beloved  !  What  atrocious  falsehoods  those  por- 
traits in  the  shop- windows  are !  And  I,  who  made 
that  horrible  lithograph  my  joy !  —  I  am  humbled 
at  the  thought  of  loving  one  so  handsome.  No ;  it  is 
impossible  that  those  Parisian  women  are  so  stupid  as 
not  to  have  seen  their  dreams  fulfilled  in  you.  You 
neglected  !  you  unloved !  I  do  not  believe  a  word  of 
all  that  you  have  written  me  about  your  lonely  and 
obscure  life,  your  hunger  for  an  idol,  —  sought  in  vain 
until  now.  You  have  been  too  well  loved,  monsieur ; 
your  brow,  white  and  smooth  as  a  magnolia  leaf,  re- 
veals it ;  and  it  is  I  who  must  be  neglected,  —  for  who 
am  I?  Ah!  why  have  }rou  called  me  to  life?  I  felt 
for  a  moment  as  though  the  heavy  burden  of  the  flesh 


Modeste   Mignon.  157 

was  leaving  me  ;  my  soul  had  broken  the  crystal  which 
held  it  captive ;  it  pervaded  my  whole  being ;  the 
cold  silence  of  material  things  had  ceased ;  all  things 
in  nature  had  a  voice  and  spoke  to  me.  The  old 
church  was  luminous.  Its  arched  roof,  brilliant  with 
gold  and  azure  like  those  of  an  Italian  cathedral, 
sparkled  above  my  head.  Melodies  such  as  the  angels 
sang  to  martyrs,  quieting  their  pains,  sounded  from 
the  organ.  The  rough  pavements  of  Havre  seemed ' 
to  my  feet  a  flowery  mead ;  the  sea  spoke  to  me  with 
a  voice  of  sympathy,  like  an  old  friend  whom  I  had 
never  truly  understood.  I  saw  clearly  how  the  roses  in 
my  garden  had  long  adored  me  and  bidden  me  love ; 
they  lifted  their  heads  and  smiled  as  I  came  back  from 
church.  I  heard  your  name,  "  Melchior,"  chiming  in  the 
flower-bells  ;  I  saw  it  written  on  the  clouds.  Yes,  yes, 
I  live,  I  am  living,  thanks  to  thee,  —  my  poet,  more 
beautiful  than  that  cold,  conventional  Lord  Byron, 
with  a  face  as  dull  as  the  English  climate.  One  glance 
of  thine,  thine  Orient  glance,  pierced  through  my 
double  veil  and  sent  thy  blood  to  my  heart,  and  from 
thence  to  my  head  and  feet.  Ah !  that  is  not  the  life 
our  mother  gave  us.  A  hurt  to  thee  would  hurt  me 
too  at  the  very  instant  it  was  given,  —  my  life  exists 
by  thy  thought  only.  I  know  now  the  purpose  of  the 
divine  faculty  of  music ;  the  angels  invented  it  to  utter 
love.  Ah,  my  Melchior,  to  have  genius  and  to  have 
beauty  is  too  much ;  a  man  should  be  made  to  choose 
between  them  at  his  birth. 

When  I  think  of  the  treasures  of  tenderness  and 
affection  which  you  have  given  me,  and  more  especially 
for  the  last  month,  I  ask  myself  if  I  dream.     No,  but 


158  Modeste   Mignon. 

you  hide  some  mystery ;  what  woman  can  yield  yon  up 
to  me  and  not  die?  Ah  !  jealousy  has  entered  my  heart 
with  love,  —  love  in  which  I  could  not  have  believed. 
How  could  I  have  imagined  so  mighty  a  conflagration  ? 
And  now — strange  and  inconceivable  revulsion!  —  I 
would  rather  you  were  ugly. 

What  follies  I  committed  after  I  came  home !  The 
yellow  dahlias  reminded  me  of  }our  waistcoat,  the 
white  roses  were  nry  loving  friends ;  I  bowed  to  them 
with  a  look  that  belonged  to  you,  like  all  that  is  of  me. 
The  very  color  of  the  gloves,  moulded  to  hands  of  a 
gentleman,  your  step  along  the  nave, — all,  all,  is  so 
printed  on  my  memory  that  sixty  years  hence  I  shall 
see  the  veriest  trifles  of  this  day  of  days,  — the  color  of 
the  atmosphere,  the  ray  of  sunshine  that  flickered  on  a 
certain  pillar ;  I  shall  hear  the  prayer  your  step  inter- 
rupted ;  I  shall  inhale  the  incense  of  the  altar ;  forever 
I  shall  feel  above  our  heads  the  priestly  hands  that 
blessed  us  both  as  you  passed  by  me  at  the  closing 
benediction.  The  good  Abbe  Marcelin  married  us 
then !  The  happiness,  above  that  of  earth,  which  I 
feel  in  this  new  world  of  unexpected  emotions  can  only 
be  equalled  b}r  the  joy  of  telling  it  to  you,  of  sending 
it  back  to  him  who  poured  it  into  my  heart  with  the 
lavishness  of  the  sun  itself.  No  more  veils,  no  more 
disguises,  my  beloved.  Come  back  to  me,  oh,  come 
back  soon.     With  joy  I  now  unmask. 

You  have  no  doubt  heard  of  the  house  of  Mignon  in 
Havre?  Well,  I  am,  through  an  irreparable  misfortune, 
its  sole  heiress.  But  3-011  are  not  to  look  down  upon 
us,  descendant  of  an  Auvergne  knight;  the  arms 
of. the  Mignon  de    La  Bastie  will    do  no  dishonor  to 


Modeste   Mignon.  159 

those  of  Canalis.  We  bear  gules,  on  a  bend  sable 
four  bezants  or ;  quarterly  four  crosses  patriarchal  or : 
a  cardinal's  hat  as  crest,  and  the  fiocchi  for  supports. 
Dear,  I  will  be  faithful  to  our  motto :  Una  fides,  units 
Dominus  !  —  the  true  faith,  and  one  only  Master. 

Perhaps,  my  friend,  you  will  find  some  irony  in  my 
name,  after  all  that  I  have  done,  and  all  that  I  herein 
avow.  I  am  named  Modeste.  Therefore  I  have  not 
deceived  you  by  signing  "O.  d'Este  M."  Neither  have  I 
misled  you  about  our  fortune  ;  it  will  amount,  I  believe, 
to  the  sum  which  rendered  you  so  virtuous.  I  know 
that  to  you  money  is  a  consideration  of  small  impor- 
tance ;  therefore  I  speak  of  it  without  reserve.  Let  me 
tell  you  how  happy  it  makes  me  to  give  freedom  of 
action  to  our  happiness,  —  to  be  able  to  say,  when 
the  fancy  for  travel  takes  us,  "  Come,  let  us  go  in 
a  comfortable  carriage,  sitting  side  by  side,  without  a 
thought  of  money  "  —  happy,  in  short,  to  tell  the  king, 
U  I  have  the  fortune  which  you  require  in  your  peers." 
Thus  Modeste  Mignon  can  be  of  service  to  you,  and 
her  gold  will  have  the  noblest  of  uses. 

As  to  your  servant  herself,  —  you  did  see  her 
once,  at  her  window.  Yes,  "  the  fairest  daughter  of 
Eve  the  fair  "  was  indeed  your  unknown  damozel ;  but 
how  little  the  Modeste  of  to-day  resembles  her  of  that 
long  past  era  !  That  one  was  in  her  shroud,  this  one  — 
have  I  made  you  know  it?  —  has  received  from  you  the 
life  of  life.  Love,  pure,  and  sanctioned,  the  love  my 
lather,  now  returning  rich  and  prosperous,  will  author- 
ize, has  raised  me  with  its  powerful  yet  childlike  hand 
from  the  grave  in  which  I  slept.  You  have  wakened 
me  as  the  sun  wakens  the  flowers.     The  eyes  of  your 


160  3Iodeste    Mignon. 

beloved  are  no  longer  those  of  the  little  Modeste  so 
daring  in  her  ignorance,  —  no,  they  are  dimmed  with 
the  sight  of  happiness,  and  the  lids  close  over  them. 
To-dajr  I  tremble  lest  I  can  never  deserve  my  fate. 
The  king  has  come  in  his  glory ;  nry  lord  has  now  a 
subject  who  asks  pardon  for  the  liberties  she  has  taken, 
like  the  gambler  with  loaded  dice  after  cheating  Mon- 
sieur de  Grammont. 

My  cherished  poet !  I  will  be  thy  Mignon  —  happier 
far  than  the  Mignon  of  Goethe,  for  thou  wilt  leave  me 
in  mine  own  land,  —  in  thy  heart.  Just  as  I  write  this 
pledge  of  our  betrothal  a  nightingale  in  the  Vilquin 
park  answers  for  thee.  Ah,  tell  me  quick  that  his  note, 
so  pure,  so  clear,  so  full,  which  fills  my  heart  with  joy 
and  love  like  an  Annunciation,  does  not  lie  to  me. 

My  father  will  pass  through  Paris  on  his  way  from 
Marseilles  ;  the  house  of  Mongenod,  with  whom  he  cor- 
responds, will  know  his  address.  Go  to  him,  m}r  Mel- 
chior,  tell  him  that  you  love  me ;  but  do  not  try  to  tell 
him  how  I  love  you,  —  let  that  be  forever  between  our- 
selves and  God.  I,  my  dear  one,  am  about  to  tell 
everything  to  my  mother.  Her  heart  will  justify  my 
conduct ;  she  will  rejoice  in  our  secret  poem,  so  roman- 
tic, human  and  divine  in  one. 

You  have  the  confession  of  the  daughter ;  you  must 
now  obtain  the  consent  of  the  Comte  de  La  Bastie, 
father  of  your 

Modeste. 

P.  S.  —  Above  all,  do  not  come  to  Havre  without 
having  first  obtained  mjr  father's  consent.  If  you  love 
me  you  will  not  fail  to  find  him  on  his  way  through 
Paris. 


Modeste   Mignon.  161 

"  "What  are  you  doing,  up  at  this  hour,  Mademoiselle 
Modeste  ?  "  said  the  voice  of  Dumay  at  her  door. 

''Writing  to  my  father,"  she  answered;  "  did  you 
not  tell  me  you  should  start  in  the  morning  ?" 

Duma}7  had  nothing  to  say  to  that,  and  he  went  to 
bed,  while  Modeste  wrote  another  long  letter,  this  time 
to  her  father. 

On  the  morrow,  Francoise  Cochet,  terrified  at  seeing 
the  Havre  postmark  on  the  envelope  which  Ernest  had 
mailed  the  night  before,  brought  her  }Toung  mistress  the 
following  letter  and  took  away  the  one  which  Modeste 
had  written :  — 

To  Mademoiselle  O.  d'Este  M., — My  heart  tells 
me  that  you  were  the  woman  so  carefully  veiled  and 
disguised,  and  seated  between  Monsieur  and  Madame 
Latournelle,  who  have  but  one  child,  a  son.  Ah,  my 
love,  if  you  have  only  a  modest  station,  without  dis- 
tinction, without  importance,  without  money  even,  you 
do  not  know  how  happy  that  would  make  me.  You 
ought  to  understand  me  by  this  time ;  why  will  you 
not  tell  me  the  truth  ?  I  am  no  poet,  —  except  in 
heart,  through  love,  through  you.  Oh !  what  power 
of  affection  there  is  in  me  to  keep  me  here  in  this  hotel, 
instead  of  mounting  to  Ingouville  which  I  can  see  from 
my  windows.  Will  you  ever  love  me  as  I  love  you? 
To  leave  Havre  in  such  uncertainty  !  Am  I  not  punished 
for  loving  you  as  if  I  had  committed  a  crime  ?  But  I 
obey  you  blindly.  Let  me  have  a  letter  quickly,  for  if  you 
have  been  mysterious,  I  have  returned  30U  mystery  for 
mystery,  and  I  must  at  last  throw  off  my  disguise,  show 
you  the  poet  that  I  am,  and  abdicate  my  borrowed  glory. 

11 


162 


Modeste   Mignon. 


This  letter  made  Modeste  terribly  uneasy.  She 
could  not  get  back  the  one  which  Francoise  had  car- 
ried awa}r  before  she  came  to  the  last  words,  whose 
meaning  she  now  sought  by  reading  them  again  and 
again ;  but  she  went  to  her  own  room  and  wrote 
an  answer  in  which  she  demanded  an  immediate 
explanation. 


Modeste    Mignon.  163 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

MATTERS   GROW   COMPLICATED. 

During  these  little  events  other  little  events  were 
going  on  in  Havre,  which  caused  Modeste  to  forget  her 
present  uneasiness.  Dumay  went  down  to  Havre  early 
in  the  morning,  and  soon  discovered  that  no  architect 
had  been  in  town  the  da}'  before.  Furious  at  Butscha' s 
lie,  which  revealed  a  conspiracy  of  which  he  was  re- 
solved to  know  the  meaning,  he  rushed  from  the  mayor's 
office  to  his  friend  Latournelle. 

"Where's  your  Master  Butscha?"  he  demanded  of 
the  notary,  when  he  saw  that  the  clerk  was  not  in  his 
place. 

"Butscha,  my  dear  fellow,  has  gone  to  Paris.  He 
heard  some  news  of  his  father  this  morning  on  the 
quays,  from  a  Swedish  sailor.  It  seems  the  father 
went  to  the  Indies  and  served  a  prince,  or  something, 
and  he  is  now  in  Paris." 

"Lies!  it's  all  a  trick!  infamous!  I'll  find  that 
damned  cripple  if  I  've  got  to  go  express  to  Paris  for 
him,"  cried  Duma}-.  "Butscha  is  deceiving  us;  he 
knows  something  about  Modeste,  and  hasn't  told  us. 
If  he  meddles  in  this  thing  he  shall  never  be  a  notary. 
I  '11  roll  him  in  the  mud  from  which  he  came,  I  '11  —  M 

"  Come,  come,  my  friend ;  never  hang  a  man  before 
you  try  him,"  said  Latournelle,  frightened  at  Dumay's 
rage. 


164  Modest e   Mignon, 

After  stating  the  facts  on  which  his  suspicions  were 
founded,  Dumay  begged  Madame  Latournelle  to  go  and 
stay  at  the  Chalet  during  his  absence. 

"  You  will  find  the  colonel  in  Paris,"  said  the  notary. 
"  In  the  shipping  news  quoted  this  morning  in  the 
Journal  of  Commerce,  I  found  under  the  head  of  Mar- 
seilles—  here,  see  for  yourself/'  he  said,  offering  the 
paper.  "  *■  The  Bettina  Mignon,  Captain  Mignon,  ar- 
rived October  6  ; '  it  is  now  the  17th,  and  the  colonel 
is  sure  to  be  in  Paris." 

Dumay  requested  Gobenheim  to  do  without  him  in 
future,  and  then  went  back  to  the  Chalet,  which  he 
reached  just  as  Modeste  was  sealing  her  two  letters,  to 
her  father  and  Canalis.  Except  for  the  address  the 
letters  were  precisely  alike  both  in  weight  and  appear- 
ance. Modeste  thought  she  had  laid  that  to  her  father 
over  that  to  her  Melchior,  but  had,  in  fact,  done  ex- 
actly the  reverse.  This  mistake,  so  often  made  in  the 
little  things  of  life,  occasioned  the  discovery  of  her  se- 
cret by  Dumay  and  her  mother.  The  former  was  talk- 
ing vehemently  to  Madame  Mignon  in  the  salon,  and 
revealing  to  her  his  fresh  fears  caused  by  Modeste's 
duplicity  and  Butscha's  connivance. 

"  Madame,"  he  cried,  "  he  is  a  serpent  whom  we 
have  warmed  in  our  bosoms ;  there 's  no  place  in  his 
contorted  little  body  for  a  soul ! " 

Modeste  put  the  letter  for  her  father  into  the  pocket 
of  her  apron,  supposing  it  to  be  that  for  Canalis,  and 
came  downstairs  with  the  letter  for  her  lover  in  her 
hand,  to  see  Dumay  before  he  started  for  Paris. 

"  What  has  happened  to  my  Black  Dwarf?  wiry  are 
you  talking  so  loud  ! "  she  said,  appearing  at  the  door. 


Modeste   Mignon.  165 

"  Mademoiselle,  Butscha  has  gone  to  Paris,  and 
you,  no  doubt,  know  wiry,  —  to  carry  on  that  affair  of 
the  little  architect  with  the  sulphur  waistcoat,  who,  un- 
luckily for  the  hunchback's  lies,  has  never  been  here." 

Modeste  was  struck  dumb;  feeling  sure  that  the 
dwarf  had  departed  on  a  mission  of  inquiry  as  to  her 
poet's  morals,  she  turned  pale,  and  sat  down. 

"I'm  going  after  him ;  I  shall  find  him,"  continued 
Dumay.  "  Is  that  the  letter  for  your  father,  made- 
moiselle?" he  added,  holding  out  his  hand.  "  I  will 
take  it  to  the  Mongenods.  God  grant  the  colonel  and 
I  may  not  pass  each  other  on  the  road." 

Modeste  gave  him  the  letter.  Dumay  looked  me- 
chanically at  the  address. 

44  4  Monsieur  le  Baron  de  Canalis,  rue  de  Paradis- 
Poissonniere,  No.  29'!"  he  cried  out;  u  what  does 
that  mean?" 

44  Ah,  my  daughter !  that  is  the  man  you  love," 
exclaimed  Madame  Mignon ;  44  the  stanzas  you  set  to 
music  were  his  —  " 

44  And  that's  his  portrait  that  you  have  in  a  frame 
upstairs,"  added  Dumay. 

44  Give  me  back  that  letter,  Monsieur  Dumay,"  said 
Modeste,  erecting  herself  like  a  lioness  defending  her 
cubs. 

44  There  it  is,  mademoiselle,"  he  replied. 

Modeste  put  it  into  the  bosom  of  her  dress,  and  gave 
Dumay  the  one  intended  for  her  father. 

44 1  know  what  you  are  capable  of,  Duma}',"  she 
said;  44and  if  you  take  one  step  against  Monsieur 
de  Canalis,  I  shall  take  another  out  of  this  house,  to 
which  I  will  never  return." 


166  Modeste   Mignon. 

"You  will  kill  your  mother,  mademoiselle,"  replied 
Dumay,  who  left  the  room  and  called  his  wife. 

The  poor  mother  was  indeed  half-fainting,  —  struck  to 
the  heart  by  Modeste's  words. 

"  Good-by,  wife,"  said  the  Breton,  kissing  the 
American.  "  Take  care  of  the  mother ;  I  go  to  save 
the  daughter." 

He  made  his  preparations  for*  the  journey  in  a  few 
minutes,  and  started  for  Havre.  An  hour  later  he  was 
travelling  post  to  Paris,  with  the  haste  that  nothing 
but  passion  or  speculation  can  get  out  of  wheels. 

Recovering  herself  under  Modeste's  tender  care, 
Madame  Mignon  went  up  to  her  bedroom  leaning  on 
the  arm  of  her  daughter,  to  whom  she  said,  as  her  sole 
reproach,  when  they  were  alone  :  — 

"  My  unfortunate  child,  see  what  you  have  done! 
Why  did  you  conceal  anything  from  me?  Am  I  so 
harsh?" 

"  Oh !  I  was  just  going  to  tell  it  to  you  comfortably," 
sobbed  Modeste. 

She  thereupon  related  everything  to  her  mother,  read 
her  the  letters  and  their  answers,  and  shed  the  rose  of 
her  poem  petal  by  petal  into  the  heart  of  the  kind  Ger- 
man woman.  When  this  confidence,  which  took  half 
the  day,  was  over,  when  she  saw  something  that  was 
almost  a  smile  on  the  lips  of  the  too  indulgent  mother, 
Modeste  fell  upon  her  breast  in  tears. 

"  Oh,  mother!"  she  said  amid  her  sobs,  "you, 
whose  heart,  all  gold  and  poetry,  is  a  chosen  vessel, 
chosen  of  God  to  hold  a  sacred  love,  a  single  and  celes- 
tial love  that  endures  for  life ;  you ,  whom  I  wish  to 
imitate  by  loving  no  one  but  my  husband, — you  will 


Modeste   Mignon.  167 

surely  understand  what  bitter  tears  I  am  now  shedding. 
This  butterfly,  this  Psyche  of  my  thoughts,  this  dual 
soul  which  I  have  nurtured  with  maternal  care,  my  love, 
my  sacred  love,  this  living  mystery  of  mysteries  —  it 
is  about  to  fall  into  vulgar  hands,  and  they  will  tear  its 
diaphanous  wings  and  rend  its  veil  under  the  miserable 
pretext  of  enlightening  me,  of  discovering  whether 
genius  is  as  prudent  as  a  banker,  whether  my  Melchior 
has  saved  his  money,  or  whether  he  has  some  entangle- 
ment to  shake  off;  they  want  to  find  out  if  he  is  guilty 
to  bourgeois  eyes  of  youthful  indiscretions,  —  which 
to  the  sun  of  our  love  are  like  the  clouds  of  the  dawn. 
Oh!  what^will  come  of  it?  what  will  they  do?  See! 
feel  my  hand,  it  burns  with  fever.  Ah !  I  shall  never 
survive  it." 

And  Modeste,  really  taken  with  a  chill,  was  forced 
to  go  to  bed,  causing  serious  uneasiness  to  her  mother, 
Madame  Latournelle,  and  Madame  Dumay,  who  took 
good  care  of  her  during  the  journey  of  the  lieutenant 
to  Paris, — to  which  city  the  logic  of  events  compels 
us  to  transport  our  drama  for  a  moment. 

Truly  modest  minds,  like  that  of  Ernest  de  La  Brie  re, 
but  especially  those  who,  knowing  their  own^value,  also 
know  that  they  are  neither  loved  nor  appreciated,  can 
understand  the  infinite  joy  to  which  the  3roung  secre- 
tary abandoned  himself  on  reading  Modeste's  letter. 
Could  it  be  that  after  thinking  him  lofty  and  witty  in 
sou},  his  young,  his  artless,  his  tricksome  mistress  now 
thought  him  handsome?  This  flattery  is  the  flattery 
supreme.  And  why?  Beauty  is,  undoubtedly,  the  sig- 
nature of  the  master  to  the  work  into  which  he  has  put 
his  soul |  it  is  the  divine  spirit  manifested.     And  to  see 


168  Modeste   Mignon. 

it  where  it  is  not,  to  create  it  by  the  power  of  an  inward 
look,  —  is  not  that  the  highest  reach  of  love  ?  And  so 
the  poor  youth  cried  aloud  with  all  the  rapture  of  an 
applauded  author,  "At  last  I  am  beloved  !  "  When  a 
woman,  be  she  maid,  wife,  or  widow,  lets  the  charming 
words  escape  her,  "Thou  art  handsome,"  the  words 
may  be  false,  but  the  man  opens  his  thick  skull  to  their 
subtle  poison,  and  thenceforth  he  is  attached  by  an 
everlasting  tie  to  the  pretty  flatterer,  the  true  or  the 
deceived  judge ;  she  becomes  his  particular  world,  he 
thirsts  for  her  continual  testimony,  and  he  never  wea- 
ries of  it,  even  if  he  is  a  crowned  prince.  Ernest 
walked  proudly  up  and  down  his  room;  he  struck  a 
three-quarter,  full- face,  and  profile  attitude  before  the 
glass  ;  he  tried  to  criticise  himself;  but  a  voice,  diabol- 
ically persuasive,  whispered  to  him,  ' '  Modeste  is  right." 
He  took  up  her  letter  and  re-read  it ;  he  saw  his  fairest 
of  the  fair ;  he  talked  with  her ;  then,  in  the  midst  of 
his  ecstacy,  a  dreadful  thought  came  to  him  :  — 

"  She  thinks  me  Canalis,  and  she  has  a  million  of 
money ! " 

Down  went  his  happiness,  just  as  a  somnambu- 
list, having  attained  the  peak  of  a  roof,  hears  a  voice, 
awakes,  and  falls  crushed  upon  the  pavement. 

"Without  the  halo  of  fame  I  shall  be  hideous  in  her 
e3Tes,"  he  cried  ;  u  what  a  maddening  situation  I  have 
put  myself  in  !  " 

La  Briere   was   too   much   the  man    of  his    letters 
which  we  have  read,  his  heart  was  too  ^obie^and  pjirjeu 
to  allow  him  to  hesitate  at  the  call  of  honor.     He  at 
once  resolved  to  find  Modeste's  father,  if  he  were  in 
Paris,  and  confess  all  to  him,  and  to  let  Canalis  know 


Modeste   Mignon.  169 

the  serious  results  of  their  Parisian  jest.  To  a  sen- 
sitive nature  like  his,  Modeste's  large  fortune  was  in 
itself  a  determining  reason.  He  could  not  allow  it  to 
be  even  suspected  that  the  ardor  of  the  correspondence, 
so  sincere  on  his  part,  had  in  view  the  capture  of  a  dot. 
Tears  were  in  his  eyes  as  he  made  his  way  to  the  rue 
Chantereine  to  find  the  banker  Mongenod,  ( whose  for- 
tune and  business  connections  were  partly  the  work  of 
the  minister  to  whom  Ernest  owed  his  start  in  life. 

At  the  hour  when  La  Briere  was  inquiring  about  the 
father  of  his  beloved  from  the  head  of  the  house  of 
Mongenod,  and  getting  information  that  might  be  use- 
ful to  him  in  his  strange  position,  a  scene  was  tak- 
ing place  in  CanahVs  study  which  the  ex-lieutenant's 
hasty  departure  from  Havre  may  have  led  the  reader 
to  foresee. 

Like  a  true  soldier  of  the  imperial  school,  Dumay, 
whose  Breton  blood  had  boiled  all  the  way  to  Paris, 
considered  a  poet  to  be  a  poor  stick  of  a  fellow,  of  no 
consequence  whatever,  —  a  buffoon  addicted  to  choruses, 
living  in  a  garret,  dressed  in  black  clothes  that  were 
white  at  every  seam,  wearing  boots  that  were  occasion- 
ally without  soles,  and  linen  that  was  unmentionable, 
and  whose  fingers  knew  more  about  ink  than  soap ;  in 
short,  one  who  looked  always  as  if  he  had  tumbled 
from  the  moon,  except  when  scribbling  at  a  desk,  like 
Butscha.  But  the  seething  of  the  Breton's  heart  and 
brain  received  a  violent  application  of  cold  water  when 
he  entered  the  courtyard  of  the  pretty  house  occupied 
by  the  poet  and  saw  a  groom  washing  a  carriage,  and 
also,  through  the  windows  of  a  handsome  dining-room, 
a  valet  dressed  like  a  banker,  to  whom  the  groom  re- 


170  Modeste   Mignon. 

ferred  him,  and  who  answered,  looking  the  stranger 
over  from  head  to  foot,  that  Monsieur  le  baron  was  not 
visible.  "There  is,"  added  the  man,  "a  meeting  of 
the  council  of  state  to-day,  at  which  Monsieur  le  baron 
is  obliged  to  be  present." 

"  Is  this  really  the  house  of  Monsieur  Canalis,"  said 
Dumay,  "  a  writer  of  poetry  ?  " 

"  Monsieur  le  baron  de  Canalis,"  replied  the  valet, 
"  is  the  great  poet  of  whom  you  speak  ;  but  he  is  also 
the  president  of  the  court  of  Claims  attached  to  the 
ministry  of  foreign  affairs." 

Dumay,  who  had  come  to  box  the  ears  of  a  scribbling 
nobody,  found  himself  confronted  by  a  high  functionary 
of  the  state.  The  salon  where  he  was  told  to  wait 
offered,  as  a  topic  for  his  meditations,  the  insignia  of 
the  Legion  of  honor  glittering  on  a  black  coat  which 
the  valet  had  left  upon  a  chair.  Presently  his  eyes 
were  attracted  by  the  beauty  and  brilliancj'  of  a  silver- 
gilt  cup  bearing  the  words  u  Given  by  Madame." 
Then  he  beheld  before  him,  on  a  pedestal,  a  Sevres 
vase  on  which  was  engraved,  "  The  gift  of  Madame  la 
Dauphine." 

These  mute  admonitions  brought  Duma}'  to  his  senses 
while  the  valet  went  to  ask  his  master  if  he  would  re- 
ceive a  person  who  had  come  from  Havre  expressly  to 
see  him,  —  a  stranger  named  Dumay. 

"  What  sort  of  a  man  ?  "  asked  Canalis. 

u  He  is  well-dressed,  and  wears  the  ribbon  of  the 
Legion  of  honor." 

Canalis  made  a  sign  of  assent,  and  the  valet  re- 
treated, and  then  returned  and  announced,  "  Monsieur 
Dumav." 


Modeste   Mignon.  171 

When  he  heard  himself  announced,  when  he  was  ac- 
tually in  presence  of  Canalis,  in  a  study  as  gorgeous  as 
it  was  elegant,  with  his  feet  on  a  carpet  far  handsomer 
than  any  in  the  house  of  Mignon,  and  when  he  met  the 
studied  glance  of  the  poet  who  was  playing  with  the 
tassels  of  a  sumptuous  dressing-gown,  Dumay  was  so 
completely  taken  aback  that  he  allowed  the,  great  poet 
to  have  the  first  word. 

44  To  what  do  I  owe  the  honor  of  your  visit,  monsieur  ?" 

"  Monsieur,"  began  Dumay,  who  remained  standing. 

u  If  you  have  a  good  deal  to  say,"  interrupted  Cana- 
lis, "  I  must  ask  you  to  be  seated." 

And  Canalis  himself  plunged  into  an  armchair  a  la 
Voltaire,  crossed  his  legs,  raised  the  upper  one  to  the 
level  of  his  eye  and  looked  fixedly  at  Dumay,  who  be- 
came, to  use  his  own  martial  slang,  "  ba}*onetted." 

"  I  am  listening,  monsieur,"  said  the  poet ;  M  my  time 
is  precious,  —  the  ministers  are  expecting  me." 

"Monsieur,"  said  Duma}T,  "I  shall  be  brief.  You 
have  seduced  —  how,  I  do  not  know  —  a  young  lady  in 
Havre,  3'oung,  beautiful,  and  rich ;  the  last  and  only 
hope  of  two  noble  families ;  and  I  have  come  to  ask 
your  intentions." 

Canalis,  who  had  been  busy  during  the  last  three 
months  with  serious  matters  of  his  own,  and  was  trying 
to  get  himself  made  commander  of  the  Legion  of  honor 
and  minister  to  a  German  court,  had  completely  for- 
gotten Modeste's  letter. 

"  I !  "  he  exclaimed. 

"  You !  "  repeated  Dumay. 

"Monsieur,"  answered  Canalis,  smiling;  "I  know 
no  more  of  what  you  are  talking  about^jtbairit^ .yotijiad 

«  UNIVERSITY  J 


172  Modeste   Mignon. 

said  it  in  Hebrew.  I  seduce  a  young  girl!  I,  who 
—  "  and  a  superb  smile  crossed  his  features.  "  Come, 
come,  monsieur,  I  'm  not  such  a  child  as  to  steal  fruit 
over  the  hedges  when  I  have  orchards  and  gardens  of 
my  own  where  the  finest  peaches  ripen.  All  Paris 
knows  where  my  affections  are  set.  Very  likely  there 
may  be  some  young  girl  in  Havre  full  of  enthusiasm  for 
my  verses,  — of  which  they  are  not  worthy  ;  that  would 
not  surprise  me  at  all ;  nothing  is  more  common.  See  ! 
look  at  that  lovely  coffer  of  ebony  inlaid  with  mother- 
of-pearl,  and  edged  with  that  iron-work  as  fine  as  lace. 
That  coffer  belonged  to  Pope  Leo  X.,  and  was  given  to 
me  by  the  Duchesse  de  Chaulieu,  who  received  it  from 
the  king  of  Spain.  I  use  it  to  hold  the  letters  I  receive 
from  ladies  and  young  girls  living  in  every  quarter  of 
Europe.  Oh !  I  assure  you  I  feel  the  utmost  respect 
for  these  flowers  of  the  soul,  cut  and  sent  in  mo- 
ments of  enthusiasm  that  are  worthy  of  all  reverence. 
Yes,  to  me  the  impulse  of  a  heart  is  a  noble  and  sub- 
lime thing  !  Others  —  scoffers  —  light  their  cigars  with 
such  letters,  or  give  them  to  their  wives  for  curl-papers ; 
but  I,  who  am  a  bachelor,  monsieur,  I  have  too  much 
delicacy  not  to  preserve  these  artless  offerings  —  so 
fresh,  so  disinterested  —  in  a  tabernacle  of  their  own. 
In  fact,  I  guard  them  with  a  species  of  veneration,  and 
at  my  death  they  will  be  burned  before  my  eyes. 
People  ma}^  call  that  ridiculous,  but  I  do  not  care.  I 
am  grateful ;  these  proofs  of  devotion  enable  me  to 
bear  the  criticisms  and  annoj-ances  of  a  literary  life. 
When  I  receive  a  shot  in  the  back  from  some  enemy 
lurking  under  cover  of  a  daily  paper,  I  look  at  that 
casket  and  think,  —  here  and  there  in  this  wide  world 


Modeste   Mignon.  173 

there  are  hearts  whose  wounds  have  been  healed,  or 
soothed,  or  dressed  by  me ! " 

This  bit  of  poetry,  declaimed  with  all  the  talent  of  a 
great  actor,  petrified  the  lieutenant,  whose  ejes  opened 
to  their  utmost  extent,  and  whose  astonishment  de- 
lighted the  poet. 

"  I  will  permit  you,"  continued  the  peacock,  spread- 
ing his  tail,  "  out  of  respect  for  your  position,  which  I 
fully  appreciate,  to  open  that  coffer  and  look  for  the 
letter  of  your  young  lady.  Though  I  know  I  am  right, 
I  remember  names,  and  I  assure  you  you  are  mistaken 
in  thinking  —  " 

"  And  this  is  what  a  poor  child  comes  to  in  this  gulf 
of  Paris  !  "  cried  Dumay,  —  u  the  darling  of  her  parents, 
the  joy  of  her  friends,  the  hope  of  all,  petted  by  all,  the 
pride  of  a  family,  who  has  six  persons  so  devoted  to 
her  that  the}7  would  willingly  make  a  rampart  of  their 
lives  and  fortunes  between  her  and  sorrow.  Mon- 
sieur/' Dumay  resumed  after  a  pause,  M  you  are  a  great 
poet,  and  I  am  only  a  poor  soldier.  For  fifteen  years  I 
served  my  county  in  the  ranks ;  I  have  had  the  wind 
of  many  a  bullet  in  my  face ;  I  have  crossed  Siberia 
and  been  a  prisoner  there  ;  the  Russians  flung  me  on  a 
kibitka,  and  God  knows  what  I  suffered.  I  have  seen 
thousands  of  my  comrades  die,  —  but  you,  you  have 
given  me  a  chill  to  the  marrow  of  my  bones,  such  as  I 
never  felt  before." 

Dumay  fancied  that  his  words  moved  the  poet,  but  in 
fact  the}'  only  flattered  him, — a  thing  which  at  this 
period  of  his  life  had  become  almost  an  impossibility ; 
for  his  ambitious  mind  had  long  forgotten  the  first  per- 
fumed phial  that  praise  had  broken  over  his  head. 


174  Modeste   Mignon. 

"  Ah,  my  soldier !  "  he  said  solemn  ry,  laying  his 
hand  on  Dumay's  shoulder,  and  thinking  to  himself 
how  droll  it  was  to  make  a  soldier  of  the  empire  trem- 
ble, "  this  young  girl  may  be  all  in  all  to  you,  but  to 
society  at  large  what  is  she  ?  nothing.  At  this  moment 
the  greatest  mandarin  in  China  may  be  yielding  up  the 
ghost  and  putting  half  the  universe  in  mourning,  and 
what  is  that  to  you?  The  English  are  killing  thou- 
sands of  people  in  India  more  worthy  than  we  are ; 
why,  at  this  very  moment  while  I  am  speaking  to  you 
some  ravishing  woman  is  being  burned  alive,  —  did 
that  make  you  care  less  for  your  cup  ©f  coffee  this 
morning  at  breakfast  ?  Not  a  day  passes  in  Paris 
that  some  mother  in  rags  does  not  cast  her  infant  on 
the  world  to  be  picked  up  hy  whoever  finds  it ;  and 
yet  see !  here  is  this  delicious  tea  in  a  cup  that  cost 
five  louis,  and  I  write  verses  which  Parisian  women 
rush  to  buy,  exclaiming,  c  Divine !  delicious !  charm- 
ing !  food  for  the  soul ! '  Social  nature,  like  Nature 
herself,  is  a  great  forgetter.  You  will  be  quite  surprised 
ten  years  hence  at  what  }'ou  have  done  to-da}7.  You 
are  here  in  a  city  where  people  die,  where  the\r  marr}T, 
where  they  adore  each  other  at  an  assignation,  where 
3roung  girls  suffocate  themselves,  where  the  man  of 
genius  with  his  cargo  of  thoughts  teeming  with  humane 
beneficence  goes  to  the  bottom,  —  all  side  by  side, 
sometimes  under  the  same  roof,  and  yet  ignorant  of 
each  other,  ignorant  and  indifferent.  And  here  you 
come  among  us  and  ask  us  to  expire  with  grief  at  this 
commonplace  affair." 

44  You  call  yourself  a  poet!"  cried  Dumay,  "but 
don't  you  feel  what  you  write  ?  " 


Modeste  Mignon.  175 

"Good  heavens!  if  we  endured  the  joys  or  the 
woes  we  sing  we  should  be  as  worn  out  in  three  months 
as  a  pair  of  old  boots/'  said  the  poet,  smiling.  "  But 
stay,  you  shall  not  come  from  Havre  to  Paris  to  see 
Canalis  without  eanying  something  back  with  you. 
Warrior!  [Canalis  had  the  form  and  action  of  an 
Homeric  hero]  learn  this  from  the  poet : .  Every  no- 
ble sentiment  in  man  is  a  poem  so  exclusively  indi- 
vidual that  his  nearest  friend,  his  other  self,  cares 
nothing  for  it.  It  is  a  treasure  which  is  his  alone, 
it  is  —  " 

"  Excuse  me  for  interrupting  you,"  said  Dumay, 
who  was  gazing  at  the  poet  with  horror,  "  but  did  you 
ever  come  to  Havre  ?  " 

M  I  was  there  for  a  day  and  a  night  in  the  spring  of 
1824  on  my  way  to  London." 

"  You  are  a  man  of  honor,"  continued  Dumay ;  "will 
you  give  me  your  word  that  you  do  not  know  Made- 
moiselle Modeste  Mignon  ?  " 

"This  is  the  first  time  that  name  ever  struck  my 
ear,"  replied  Canalis. 

"Ah,  monsieur!"  said  Dumay,  "into  what  dark 
intrigue  am  I  about  to  plunge  ?  Can  I  count  upon  you 
to  help  me  in  my  inquiries?  —  for  I  am  certain  that  some 
one  has  been  using  your  name.  You  ought  to  have 
had  a  letter  yesterday  from  Havre." 

"I  received  none.  Be  sure,  monsieur,  that  I  will 
help  you,"  said  Canalis,  "  so  far  as  I  have  the  oppor- 
tunity of  doing  so." 

Dumay  withdrew,  his  heart  torn  with  anxiet}%  be- 
lieving that  the  wretched  Butscha  had  worn  the  skin  of 
the  poet  to  deceive  Modeste  ;  whereas  Butscha  himself, 


176  Modeste    Mignon. 

keen-witted  as  a  prince  seeking  revenge,  and  far 
cleverer  than  any  paid  spy,  was  ferretting  out  the  life 
and  actions  of  Canalis,  escaping  notice  by  his  insig- 
nificance, like  an  insect  that  bores  its  way  into  the  sap 
of  a  tree. 

The  Breton  had  scarcely  left  the  poet's  house  when 
La  Briere  entered  his  friend's  stud}'.  Naturally,  Canalis 
told  him  of  the  visit  of  the  man  from  Havre. 

"  Ha  !  "  said  Ernest,  u  Modeste  Mignon  ;  that  is  just 
what  I  have  come  to  speak  of." 

"  Ah,  bah !  "  cried  Canalis  ;  "  have  I  had  a  triumph 
by  proxy?" 

"  Yes ;  and  here  is  the  key  to  it.  My  friend,  I  am 
loved  by  the  sweetest  girl  in  all  the  world,  —  beautiful 
enough  to  shine  beside  the  greatest  beauties  in  Paris, 
with  a  heart  and  mind  worthy  of  Clarissa.  She  has 
seen  me ;  I  have  pleased  her,  and  she  thinks  me  the 
great  Canalis.,  But  that  is  not  all.  Modeste  Mignon 
is  of  high  birth,  and  Mongenod  has  just  told  me  that 
her  father,  the  Comte  de  La  Bastie,  has  something 
like  six  millions.  The  father  is  here  now,  and  I  have 
asked  him  through  Mongenod  for  an  interview  at  two 
o'clock.  Mongenod  is  to  give  him  a  hint,  just  a 
word,  that  it  concerns  the  happiness  of  his  daughter. 
But  you  will  readily  understand  that  before  seeing 
the  father  I  feel  I  ought  to  make  a  clean  breast  of 
it  to  you." 

"  Among  the  plants  whose  flowers  bloom  in  the  sun- 
shine of  fame,"  said  Canalis,  impressively,  "  there  is 
one,  and  the  most  magnificent,  which  bears  like  the 
orange- tree  a  golden  fruit  amid  the  mingled  perfumes 
of  beauty  and  of  mind ;  a  lovely  plant,  a  true  tender- 


Modeste   Mignon.  177 

ness,  a  perfect  bliss,  and  —  it  eludes  me."  Canalis 
looked  at  the  carpet  that  Ernest  might  not  read  his 
eyes.  "  Could  I,"  he  continued  after  a  pause  to  regain 
his  self-possession,  "  how  could  I  have  divined  that 
flower  from  a  pretty  sheet  of  perfumed  paper,  that  true 
heart,  that  3'oung  girl,  that  woman  in  whom  love  wears 
the  livery  of  flattery,  who  loves  us  for  ourselves,  who 
offers  us  felicity?  It  needed  an  angel  or  a  demon  to 
perceive  her ;  and  what  am  I  but  the  ambitious  head  of 
a  Court  of  Claims  !  Ah,  my  friend,  fame  makes  us  the 
target  of  a  thousand  arrows.  One  of  us  owes  his  rich 
marriage  to  an  hydraulic  piece  of  poetry,  while  I,  more 
seductive,  more  a  woman's  man  than  he,  have  missed 
mine,  —  for,  do  you  love  her,  poor  girl  ?  "  he  said,  look- 
ing up  at  La  Briere. 

"  Oh  !  "  ejaculated  the  }Toung  man. 

"  Well  then,"  said  the  poet,  taking  his  secretary's 
arm  and  leaning  heavily  upon  it,  "be  happy,  Ernest. 
By  a  mere  accident  I  have  been  not  ungrateful  to  }rou. 
You  are  richly  rewarded  for  your  devotion,  and  I  will 
generously  further  your  happiness." 

Canalis  was  furious ;  but  he  could  not  behave  other- 
wise than  with  propriety,  and  he  made  the  best  of  his 
disappointment  by  mounting  it  as  a  pedestal. 

"  Ah,  Canalis,  I  have  never  really  known  30U  till 
this  moment." 

"Did  you  expect  to?  It  takes  some  time  to  go 
round  the  world,"  replied  the  poet  with  his  pompous 
irony. 

"But  think,"  said  La  Briere,  "of  this  enormous 
fortune." 

"Ah,  my  friend,  is  it  not  well  invested  in  you?" 
12 


178 


Modeste   Mignon. 


cried  Canalis,  accompanying  the  words  with  a  charming 
gesture. 

"  Melchior,"  said  La  Briere,  "I  am  yours  for  life 
and  death." 

He  wrung  the  poet's  hand  and  left  him  abruptly,  for 
he  was  in  haste  to  meet  Monsieur  Mignon. 


Modeste   Mignon.  179 


CHAPTER  XV. 


A   FATHER   STEPS   IN. 


The  Comte  de  La  Bastie  was  at  this  moment  over- 
whelmed with  the  sorrows  which  lay  in  wait  for  him 
as  their  prey.  He  had  learned  from  his  daughter's 
letter  of  Bettina's  death  and  of  his  wife's  infirmity,  and 
Dumay  related  to  him,  when  they  met,  his  terrible  per- 
plexity as  to  Modeste's  love  affairs. 

"  Leave  me  to  myself,"  he  said  to  his  faithful  friend. 

As  the  lieutenant  closed  the  door,  the  unhappy  father 
threw  himself  on  a  sofa,  with  his  head  in  his  hands, 
weeping  those  slow,  scant}7  tears  which  suffuse  the  eyes 
of  a  man  of  sixty,  but  do  not  fall,  —  tears  soon  dried, 
yet  quick  to  start  again,  —  the  last  dews  of  the  human 
autumn. 

"  To  have  children,  to  have  a  wife,  to  adore  them  — 
what  is  it  but  to  have  many  hearts  and  bare  them  to 
a  dagger?"  he  cried,  springing  up  with  the  bound  of  a 
tiger  and  walking  up  and  down  the  room.  "To  be  a 
father  is  to  give  one's  self  over,  bound  hand  and  foot  to 
sorrow.  If  I  meet  that  D'Estourny  I  will  kill  him.  To 
have  daughters  !  —  one  gives  her  life  to  a  scoundrel,  the 
other,  my  Modeste,  falls  a  victim  to  whom?  a  coward, 
wjiojeceives  her  with  the  gilded  paper  of  a  poet.  If  it 
were  Canalis  himself  it  might  not  be  so  bad  ;  but  that 
Scapin  of  a  lover !  —  I  will  strangle  him  with  my  two 


X80  Modeste   Mignon. 


hands,"  he  cried,  making  an  involuntary  gesture  of 
furious  determination.  "  And  what  then?  suppose  my 
Modeste  were  to  die  of  grief?  " 

He  gazed  mechanically  out  of  the  windows  of  the 
hotel  des  Princes,  and  then  returned  to  the  sofa,  where 
he  sat  motionless.  The  fatigues  of  six  voyages  to 
India,  the  anxieties  of  speculation,  the  dangers  he  had 
encountered  and  evaded,  and  his  many  griefs,  had  sil- 
vered Charles  Mignon's  head.  His  handsome  soldierly 
face,  so  pure  in  outline  and  now  bronzed  by  the  suns  of 
China  and  the  southern  seas,  had  acquired  an  air  of  dig- 
nity which  his  present  grief  rendered  almost  sublime. 

"Mongenod  told  me  he  felt  confidence  in  the  young 
man  who  is  coming  to  ask  me  for  my  daughter,"  he 
thought  at  last;  and  at  this  moment  Ernest  de  La 
Briere  was  announced  by  one  of  the  servants  whom 
t  Monsieur  de  La  Bastie  had  attached  to  himself  during 
the  last  four  }rears. 

"You  have  come,  monsieur,  from  my  friend  Mon- 
genod? "  he  said. 

"  Yes,"  replied  Ernest,  growing  timid  when  he  saw 
before  him  a  face  as  sombre  as  Othello's.  M  My  name 
is  Ernest  de  La  Briere,  related  to  the  family  of  the  late 
cabinet  minister,  and  his  private  secretary  during  his 
term  of  office.  On  his  dismissal,  his  Excellency  put  me 
in  the  Court  of  Claims,  to  which  I  am  legal  counsel, 
and  where  I  ma}^  possibly  succeed  as  chief —  " 

"  And  how  does  all  this  concern  Mademoiselle  de  La 
Bastie?"  asked  the  count. 

"Monsieur,  I  love  her;  and  I  have  the  unhoped-for 
happiness  of  being  loved  by  her.  Hear  me,  monsieur," 
cried  Ernest,  checking  a  violent  movement  on  the  part 


Modeste   Mignon.  181 

of  the  angry  father.  "  I  have  the  strangest  confession 
to  make  to  you,  a  shameful  one  for  a  man  of  honor ; 
but  the  worst  punishment  of  my  conduct,  natural  enough 
in  itself,  is  not  the  telling  of  it  to  you ;  no,  I  fear  the 
daughter  even  more  than  the  father." 

Ernest  then  related  simply,  and  with  the  nobleness 
that  comes  of  sincerity,  all  the  facts  of  his  little  drama, 
not  omitting  the  twentjT  or  more  letters,  which  he  had 
brought  with  him,  nor  the  interview  which  he  had  just 
had  with  Canalis.  When  Mo&sieur  MignoaJaad  finished 
reading  the  letters,  the  unfortunate  lover,  pale  and 
suppliant,  actually  trembled  under  the  fiery  glance  of 
the  Provencal. 

"Monsieur,"  said  the  latter,  "  in  this  whole  matter 
there  is  but  one  error,  but  that  is  cardinal.  My 
daughter  will  not  have  six  millions  ;  at  the  utmost,  she 
will  have  a  marriage  portion  of  two  hundred  thousand 
francs,  and  very  doubtful  expectations." 

U  Ah,  monsieur!"  cried  Ernest,  rising  and  grasping 
Monsieur  Mignon's  hand;  "  you  take  a  load  from  my 
breast.  Nothing  can  now  hinder  my  happiness.  I 
have  friends,  influence ;  I  shall  certainly  be  chief  of  the 
Court  of  Claims.  Had  Mademoiselle  Modeste  no  more 
than  ten  thousand  francs,  if  I  had  even  to  make  a 
settlement  on  her,  she  should  still  be  my  wife ;  and  to 
make  her  happy  as  you,  monsieur,  have  made  your  wife 
happy,  to  be  to  you  a  real  son  (for  I  have  no  father), 
are  the  deepest  desires  of  my  heart." 

Charles  Mignon  stepped  back  three  paces  and  fixed 
upon  La  Briere  a  look  which  entered  the  eyes  of  the 
young  man  as  a  dagger  enters  its  sheath ;  he  stood 
silent  a  moment,  recognizing  the  absolute  candor,  the 


182  Modeste    Mignon. 

pure  truthfulness  of  that  open  nature  in  the  light  of  the 
young  man's  inspired  eyes.  "  Is  fate  at  last  wear}-  of 
pursuing  me?"  he  asked  himself.  "Am  I  to  find  in 
this  young  man  the  pearl  of  sons-in-law?  "  He  walked 
up  and  down  the  room  in  strong  agitation. 

M  Monsieur/'  he  said  at  last,  "  you  are  bound  to  sub- 
mit wholly  to  the  judgment  which  you  have  come  here 
to  seek,  otherwise  you  are  now  playing  a  farce." 

11  Oh,  monsieur  !  " 

"  Listen  to  me,"  said  the  father,  nailing  La  Briere 
where  he  stood  with  a  glance.  "  I  shall  be  neither 
harsh,  nor  hard,  nor  unjust.  You  shall  have  the  ad- 
vantages and  the  disadvantages  of  the  false  position  in 
which  you  have  placed  yourself.  My  daughter  believes 
that  she  loves  one  of  the  great  poets  of  the  day,  whose 
fame  is  really  that  which  has  attracted  her.  Well,  I, 
her  father,  intend  to  give  her  the  opportunit}7  to  choose 
between  the  celebrity  which  has  been  a  beacon  to  her, 
and  the  poor  reality  which  the  irony  of  fate  has  flung  at 
her  feet.  Ought  she  not  to  choose  between  Canalis  and 
yourself?  I  rely  upon  your  honor  not  to  repeat  what  I 
have  told  you  as  to  the  state  of  my  affairs.  You  may 
each  come,  I  mean  you  and  your  friend  the  Baron  de 
Canalis,  to  Havre  for  the  last  two  weeks  of  October. 
My  house  will  be  open  to  both  of  you,  and  my  daughter 
shall  have  an  opportunity  to  study  you.  You  must 
yourself  bring  your  rival,  and  not  disabuse  him  as  to 
the  foolish  tales  he  will  hear  about  the  wealth  of  the 
Comte  de  La  Bastie.  I  go  to  Havre  to-morrow,  and  I 
shall  expect  you  three  days  later.     Adieu,  monsieur." 

Poor  La  Briere  went  back  to  Canalis  with  a  dragging 
step.     The  poet,  meantime,  left  to  himself,  had  given 


Modeste   Mignon.  183 

wa}'  to  a  current  of  thought  out  of  which  had  come  that 
secondary  impulse  which  Monsieur  de  Talleyrand  val- 
ued so  much.  The  first  impulse  is  the  voice  of  nature, 
the  second  that  of  society. 

"  A  girl  worth  six  millions,"  he  thought  to  himself, 
14  and  my  eyes  were  not  able  to  see  that  gold  shining 
in  the  darkness  !  With  such  a  fortune  I  could  be  peer 
of  France,  count,  marquis,  ambassador.  I  've  replied 
to  middle-class  women  and  silly  women,  and  crafty 
creatures  who  wanted  autographs  ;  I  Ve  tired  myself  to 
death  with  masked-ball  intrigues,  —  at  the  very  moment 
when  God  was  sending  me  a  soul  of  price,  an  angel  with 
golden  wings  !  Bah  !  I  '11  make  a  poem  on  it,  and  per- 
haps the  chance  will  come  again.  Heavens !  the  luck 
of  that  little  La  Briere,  —  strutting  about  in  my  lustre 
—  plagiarism  !  I  'm  the  cast  and  he  's  to  be  the  statue, 
is  he  ?  It  is  the  old  fable  of  Bertrand  and  Raton.  Six 
millions,  a  beauty,  a  Mignon  de  La  Bastie,  an  aris- 
tocratic divinity  loving  poetry  and  the  poet !  And  I, 
who  showed  my  muscle  as  man  of  the  world,  who  did 
those  Alcide  exercises  to  silence  by  moral  force,  the 
champion  of  physical  force,  that  old  soldier  with  a 
heart,  that  friend  of  this  very  .young  girl,  whom  he  '11 
now  go  and  tell  that  I  have  a  heart  of  iron  !  —  I,  to  play 
Napoleon  when  I  ought  to  have  been  seraphic  !  Good 
heavens !  True,  I  shall  have  my  friend.  Friendship 
is  a  beautiful  thing.  I  have  kept  him^  but  at  what  a 
price  !  Six  millions,  that 's  the  cost  of  it ;  we  can't 
have  many  friends  if  we  pay  all  that  for  them." 

La  Briere  entered  the  room  as  Canalis  reached 
this  point  in  his  meditations.  He  was  gloom  per- 
sonified. 


184  Modest e   Mignon. 

"  Well,  what 's  the  matter?"  said  Canalis. 

"The  father  exacts  that  his  daughter  shall  choose 
between  the  two  Canalis  —  " 

"Poor  boy!"  cried  the  poet,  laughing,  "he's  a 
clever  fellow,  that  father." 

M  I  have  pledged  my  honor  that  I  will  take  you  to 
Havre,"  said  La  Briere,  piteously. 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  said  Canalis,  "if  it  is  a  question 
of  your  honor  you  may  count  on  me.  I  '11  ask  for 
leave  of  absence  for  a  month." 

"  Modeste  is  so  beautiful !  "  exclaimed  La  Briere,  in 
a  despairing  tone.  "  You  will  crush  me  out  of  sight.  I 
wondered  all  along  that  fate  should  be  so  kind  to  me ; 
I  knew  it  was  all  a  mistake." 

"  Bah !  we  will  see  about  that,"  said  Canalis  with 
inhuman  gayety. 

That  evening,  after  dinner,  Charles  Mignon  and  Du- 
may,  were  flying,  hy  virtue  of  three  francs  to  each 
postilion,  from  Paris  to  Havre.  The  father  had  eased 
the  watch-dog's  mind  as  to  Modeste  and  her  love  af- 
fairs ;  the  guard  was  relieved,  and  Butscha's  innocence 
established. 

"It  is  all. for  the  best,  my  old  Dumay,"  said  the 
count,  who  had  been  making  certain  inquiries  of  Mon- 
genod  respecting  Canalis  and  La  Briere.  "  We  are  go- 
ing to  have  two  actors  for  one  part !  "  he  cried  gayly. 

Nevertheless,  he  requested   his  old   comrade  to   be 
absolutely  silent  about  the  comedy  which  was  now  to 
be  played  at  the  Chalet,  —  a  comedy Jt  might  be,  but 
also  a  gentle,  punishment,  or,  if  }ou  prefer  it,  &JessojEL_ 
given  by  the  father  to  the  daughter. 

The  two  friends  kept  up  a  long  conversation  all  the 


Modest e   Mignon.  185 

way  from  Paris  to  Havre,  which  put  the  colonel  in  pos- 
session of  the  tacts  relating  to  his  family  during  the 
past  four  years,  and  informed  Dumay  that  Desplein, 
the  great  surgeon,  was  coming  to  Havre  at  the  end 
of  the  present  month  to  examine  the  cataract  on  Ma- 
dame Mignon's  eyes,  and  decide  if  it  were  possible  to 
restore  her  sight.  ,    , 

A  few  moments  before  the  breakfast-hour  at  the 
Chalet,  the  clacking  of  a  postilion's  whip  apprised  the 
family  that  the  two  soldiers  were  arriving ;  only  a  fa- 
ther's joy  at  returning  after  long  absence  could  be  her- 
alded with  such  clatter,  and  it  brought  all  the  women 
to  the  garden  gate.  There  is  many  a  father  and  many 
a  child  —  perhaps  more  fathers  than  children  —  who 
will  understand  the  delights  of  such  an  arrival,  and 
that  happy  fact  shows  that  literature  has  no  need  to 
depict  it.  Perhaps  all  gentle  and  tender  emotions  are 
be\^ond  the  range  of  literature. 

Not  a  word  that  could  trouble  the  peace  of  the  fam- 
ily was  uttered  on  this  joyful  day.  Truce  was  tacitly 
established  between  father,  mother,  and  child  as  to  the 
so-called  mysterious  love  which  had  paled  Modeste's 
cheeks,  —  for  this  was  the  first  day  she  had  left  her 
bed  since  Duma}T,s  departure  for  Paris.  The  colonel, 
with  the  charming  delicacy  of  a  true  soldier,  never  left 
his  wife's  side  nor  released  her  hand ;  but  he  watched 
Modeste  with  delight,  and  was  never  weary  of  noting 
her  refined,  elegant,  and  poetic  beauty.  Is  it  not  by 
such  seeming  trifles  that  we  recognize  a  man  of  feeling? 
Modeste,  who  feared  to  interrupt  the  subdued  joy  of 
the  husband  and  wife  kept  at  a  little  distance,  coming 
from  time  to   time  to  kiss  her  father's  forehead,  and 


186  Modeste   Mignon. 

when  she  kissed  it  overmuch  she  seemed  to  mean  that 
she  was  kissing  it  for  two,  —  for  Bettina  and  herself. 

"  Oh,  nry  darling,  I  understand  30U,"  said  the  colonel, 
pressing  her  hand  as  she  assailed  him  with  kisses. 

"  Hush  !  "  whispered  the  3  oung  girl,  glancing  at  her 
mother. 

Dumay's  rather  sly  and  pregnant  silence  made  Mo- 
deste somewhat  uneasy  as  to  the  upshot  of  his  journey 
to  Paris.  She  looked  at  him  furtively  every  now  and 
then,  without  being  able  to  get  beneath  his  epidermis. 
The  colonel,  like  a  prudent  father,  wanted  to  study  the 
character  of  his  only  daughter,  and  above  all  consult 
his  wife,  before  entering  on  a  conference  upon  which  the 
happiness  of  the  whole  family  depended. 

"  To-morrow,  my  precious  child,"  he  said  as  they 
parted  for  the  night,  "  get  up  early,  and  we  will  go 
and  take  a  walk  on  the  seashore.  We  have  to  talk 
about  your  poems,  Mademoiselle  de  La  Bastie." 

His  last  words,  accompanied  by  a  smile,  which  reap- 
peared like  an  echo  on  Dumay's  lips,  were  all  that  gave 
Modeste  any  clew  to  what  was  coming ;  but  it  was 
enough  to  calm  her  uneasiness  and  keep  her  awake  far 
into  the  night  with  her  head  full  of  suppositions ;  this, 
however,  did  not  prevent  her  from  being  dressed  and 
ready  in  the  morning  long  before  the  colonel. 

"You  know  all,  my  kind  papa?"  she  said  as  soon 
as  they  were  on  the  road  to  the  beach. 

"  I  know  all,  and  a  good  deal  more  than  you  do,"  he 
replied. 

After  that  remark  father  and  daughter  went  some 
little  way  in  silence. 

"Explain  to  me,  my  child,  how  it  happens  that  a 


Modeste   Mignon.  187 

girl  whom  her  mother  idolizes  could  have  taken  such  an 
important  step  as  to  write  to  a  stranger  without  con- 
sulting her." 

M  Oh,  papa!  because  mamma  would  never  have  al- 
lowed it." 

u  And  do  3*ou  think,  my  daughter,  that  that  was 
proper?  Though  }Tou  have  been  educating  your  mind 
in  this  fatal  way,  how  is  it  that  your  good  sense  and 
your  intellect  did  not,  in  default  of  modesty,  step  in 
and  show  you  that  by  acting  as  you  did  you  were 
throwing  }7ourself  at  a  man's  head.  To  think  that  my 
daughter,  my  only  remaining  child,  should  lack  pride 
and  delicacy !  Oh,  Modeste,  you  made  your  father 
passtwo*4iouTS  in  hell  when  he  heard  of  it ;  for,  after 
all,  your  conduct  has  been  the  same  morally  as  Bet- 
tina's  without  the  excuse  of  the  heart's  seduction ;  you 
were  a  coquette  in  cold  blood,  and  that  sort  of  coquetry 
is  head-love,  the  worst  vice  of  French  women." 

"  I,  without  pride!"  said  Modeste,  weeping;  "but 
he  has  not  yet  seen  me." 

14  He  knows  your  name." 

"  I  did  not  tell  it  to  him  till  my  eyes  had  vindicated 
the  correspondence,  lasting  three  months,  during  which 
our  souls  had  spoken  to  each  other." 

"Oh,  my  dear  misguided  angel,  you  have  mixed  up 
a  species  of  reason  with  a  folly  that  has  compromised 
your  own  happiness  and  that  of  your  family." 

"  But,  after  all,  papa,  happiness  is  the  absolution  of 
my  temerity,"  she  said,  pouting. 

"  Oh  !  your  conduct  is  temerity,  is  it?  " 

u  A  temerity  that  my  mother  practised  before  me," 
she  retorted  quickly. 


188  Modeste  Mignon. 

4 4  Rebellious  child  !  your  mother  after  seeing  me  at  a 
ball  told  her  father,  who  adored  her,  that  she  thought  she 
could  be  happy  with  me.  Be  honest,  Modeste  ;  is  there 
any  likeness  between  a  love  hastily  conceived,  I  admit, 
but  under  the  eyes  of  a  father,  and  your  mad  action  of 
writing  to  a  stranger  ?  " 

44  A  stranger,  papa?  say  rather  one  of  our  greatest 
poets,  whose  character  and  whose  life  are  exposed  to 
the  strongest  light  of  day,  to  detraction,  to  calumny,  — 
a  man  robed  in  fame,  and  to  whom,  my  dear  father,  I 
was  a  mere  literary  and  dramatic  personage,  one  of 
Shakspeare's  women,  until  the  moment  when  I  wished 
to  know  if  the  man  himself  were  as  beautiful  as  his 
soul." 

44  Good  God!  my  poor  child,  you  are  turning  mar- 
riage into  poetr}\  But  if,  from  time  immemorial,  girls 
have  been  cloistered  in  the  bosom  of  their  families,  if 
God,  if  social  laws  put  them  under  the  stern  yoke  of 
parental  sanction,  it  is,  mark  my  words,  to  spare  them 
the  misfortunes  that  this  very  poetry  which  charms 
and  dazzles  you,  and  which  you  are  therefore  un- 
able to  judge  of,  would  entail  upon  them.  Poetry  is 
indeed  one  of  the  pleasures  of  life,  but  it  is  not  life 
itself." 

44  Papa,  that"  is  a  suit  still  pending  before  the  Court 
of  Facts  ;  the  struggle  is  forever  going  on  between  our 
hearts  and  the  claims  of  family." 

"Alas  for  the  child  that  finds  her  happiness  in  re- 
sisting them,"  said  the  colonel,  gravely.  "  In  1813  I 
saw  one  of  my  comrades,  the  Marquis  d'Aiglemont, 
many  his  cousin  against  the  wishes  of  her  father,  and 
the  pair  have  since  paid  dear  for  the  obstinacy  which 


Modeste  Mignon.  189 

the  young  girl  took  for  love.     The   family  must  be 
sovereign  in  marriage." 

"  My  poet  has  told  me  all  that,"  she  answered.  "  He 
played  Orgon  for  some  time  ;  and  he  was  brave  enough 
to  disparage  the  personal  lives  of  poets." 

"I  have  read  your  letters,"  said  Charles  Mignon, 
with  the  flicker  of  a  malicious  smile  on  his  •  lips  that 
made  Modeste  very  uneasy,  "  and  I  ought  to  remark 
that  3'our  last  epistle  was  scarcely  permissible  in  any 
woman,  even  a  Julie  d'Etanges.  Good  God!  what 
harm  novels  do !  " 

"  We  should  live  them,  my  dear  father,  whether 
people  wrote  them  or  not ;  I  think  it  is  better  to  read 
them.  There  are  not  so  many  adventures  in  these  days 
as  there  were  under  Louis  XIV.  and  Louis  XV.,  and 
so  they  publish  fewer  novels.  Besides,  if  you  have 
read  those  letters,  you  must  know  that  I  have  chosen 
the  most  angelic  soul,  the  most  sternly  upright  man  for 
your  son-in-law,  and  you  must  have  seen  that  we  love 
one  another  at  least  as  much  as  you  and  mamma  love 
each  other.  Well,  I  admit  that  it  was  not  all  exactly 
conventional ;  I  did,  if  you  will  have  me  say  so, 
wrong  —  " 

14  I  have  read  your  letters,"  said  her  father,  interrupt- 
ing her,  "  and  I  know  exactly  how  far  your  lover  jus- 
tified you  in  your  own  e}Tes  for  a  proceeding  which 
might  be  permissible  in  some  woman  who  understood 
life,  and  who  was  led  away  by  strong  passion,  but 
which  in  a  young  girl  of  twenty  was  a  monstrous  piece 
of  wrong-doing." 

k*  Yes,  wrong-doing  for  commonplace  people,  for  the 
narrow-minded  Gobenheims,  who  measure  life  with  a 


w 


190  Modeste   Mignon. 

square  rule.  Please  let  us  keep  to  the  artistic  and 
poetic  life,  papa.  We  young  girls  have  only  two  wa}'s 
to  act ;  we  must  let  a  man  know  we  love  him  by 
mincing  and  simpering,  or  we  must  go  to  him  frankly. 
Is  n't  the  last  way  grand  and  noble  ?  We  French  girls 
are  delivered  over  by  our  families  like  so  much  mer- 
chandise, at  sixty  days'  sight,  sometimes  thirty,  like 
Mademoiselle  Vilquin  ;  but  in  England,  and  Switzerland, 
and  Germany,  they  follow  very  much  the  plan  I  have 
adopted.  Now  what  have  you  got  to  say  to  that?  Am 
I  not  half  German  ?  " 

"Child!"  cried  the  colonel,  looking  at  her;  "the 
supremacy  of  France  comes  from  her  sound  common- 
sense,  from  the  logic  to  which  her  noble  language  con- 
strains her  mind.  France  is  the  reason  of  the  whole 
world.  England  and  Germany  are  romantic  in  their 
marriage  customs,  —  though  even  there  noble  families 
follow  our  customs.  You  certainly  do  not  mean  to 
deny  that  your  parents,  who  know  life,  who  are  respon- 
sible for  your  soul  and  for  your  happiness,  have  no 
right  to  guard  }rou  from  the  stumbling-blocks  that  are 
in  your  way?  Good  heavens  !  "  he  continued,  speaking 
half  to  himself,  "  is  it  their  fault,  or  is  it  ours?  Ought 
we  to  hold  our  children  under  an  iron  yoke?  Must  we 
be  punished  for  the  tenderness  that  leads  us  to  make 
them  happy,  and  teaches  our  hearts  how  to  do  so  ?  " 

Modeste  watched  her  father  out  of  the  corner  of  her 
e}re  as  she  listened  to  this  species  of  invocation,  uttered 
in  a  broken  voice. 

"Was  it  wrong,"  she  said,  "  in  a  girl  whose  heart 
was  free,  to  choose  for  her  husband  not  only  a  charm- 
ing companion,  but  a  man  of  noble  genius,  born  to  an 


Modeste   Mignon.  191 

honorable  position,  a  gentleman ;  the  equal  of  myself, 
a  gentlewoman  ?  " 

"  You  love  him?  "  asked  her  father. 

"  Father  !  "  she  said,  laying  her  head  upon  his  breast, 
"  would  you  see  me  die?  " 

"  Enough  ! "  said  the  old  soldier.  "I  see  your  love 
is  inextinguishable."  > 

"  Yes,  inextinguishable." 

"  Can  nothing  change  it?  " 

"Nothing." 

"  No  circumstances,  no  treachery,  no  betra}ral?  You 
mean  that  you  will  love  him  in  spite  of  everything, 
because  of  his  personal  attractions?  Even  though  he 
proved  a  D'Estourny,  would  you  love  him  still?" 

"Oh,  my  father!  you  do  not  know  your  daughter. 
Could  I  love  a  coward,  a  man  without  honor,  without 
faith?" 

"  But  suppose  he  had  deceived  you?" 

"He?  that  honest,  candid  soul,  half  meltncholy? 
You  are  joking,  father,  or  else  you  have  never  met 
him." 

"  But  you  see  now  that  your  love  is  not  inextinguish- 
able, as  you  chose  to  call  it.  I  have  already  made  you 
admit  that  circumstances  could  alter  your  poem  ;  don't 
you  now  see  that  fathers  are  good  for  something?" 

"  You  want  to  give  me  a  lecture,  papa ;  it  is  posi- 
tively l'Ami  des  Enfants  over  again." 

u  Poor  deceived  girl,"  said  her  father,  sternly ;  u  it  is 
no  lecture  of  mine,  I  count  for  nothing  in  it ;  indeed, 
I  am  only  trying  to  soften  the  blow." 

"Father,  don't  play  tricks  with  my  life,"  exclaimed 
Modeste,  turning  pale. 


192  Modesto   Mignon. 


"Then,  my  daughter,  summon  all  your  courage.  It 
is  }rou  who  have  been  playing  tricks  with  your  life,  and 
life  is  now  tricking  you." 

Modeste  looked  at  her  father  in  stupid  amazement. 

"  Suppose  that  young  man  whom  you  love,  whom 
you  saw  four  days  ago  at  church  in  Havre,  was  a 
deceiver  ?  " 

"  Never!"  she  cried;  "that  noble  head,  that  pale 
face  full  of  poetry  —  " 

u  —  was  a  lie,"  said  the  colonel  interrupting  her. 
"He  was  no  more  Monsieur  de  Canalis  than  I  am 
that  sailor  over  there  putting  out  to  sea." 

"  Do  you  know  what  }7ou  are  killing  in  me?"  she 
said  in  a  low  voice. 

"  Comfort  yourself,  my  child ;  though  accident  has 
put  the  punishment  of  your  fault  into  the  fault  itself, 
the  harm  done  is  not  irreparable.  The  young  man 
whom  you  have  seen,  and  with  whom  you  exchanged 
hearts  By  correspondence,  is  a  loyal  and  honorable 
fellow  ;  he  came  to  me  and  confided  everything.  He 
loves  you,  and  I  have  no  objection  to  him  as  a  son-in- 
law." 

"  If  he  is  not  Canalis,  who  is  he  then  ?  "  said  Modeste 
in  a  changed  voice. 

u  The  secretary ;  his  name  is  Ernest  de  La  Briere. 
He  is  not  a  nobleman  ;  but  he  is  one  of  those  plain  men 
]  with  fixed  principles  and  sound  morality  who  satisfy, 
I  parents.  However,  that  is  not  the  point ;  you  have 
seen  him  and  nothing  can  change  your  heart ;  you 
have  chosen  him,  you  comprehend  his  soul,  it  is  as 
beautiful  as  he  himself." 

The  count  was  interrupted  by  a  heavy  sigh  from 


Modeste   Mignon.  193 

Modeste.  The  poor  girl  sat  with  her  eyes  fixed  on  the 
sea,  pale  and  rigid  as  death,  as  if  a  pistol  shot  had 
struck  her  in  those  fatal  words,  a  plain  man,  with 
fixed  principles  and  sound  morality^ 

4 '  Deceived  !  "  she  said  at  last. 

"  Like  3Tour  poor  sister,  but  less  fatally." 

"  Let  us  go  home,  father,"  she  said,  rising  from  the 
hillock  on  which  they  were  sitting.  "Papa,' hear  me, 
I  swear  before  God  to  obey  your  wishes,  whatever  they 
may  be,  in  the  affair  of  my  marriage." 

"Then  }^ou  don't  love  him  any  longer ?"  asked  her 
father. 

1 '  I  loved  an  honest  man,  with  no  falsehood  on  his 
face,  upright  as  yourself,  incapable  of  disguising  himself 
like  an  actor,  with  the  paint  of  another  man's  glory  on 
his  cheeks." 

"You  said  nothing  could  change  you  5"  remarked  the 
Colonel,  ironically. 

"  Ah,  do  not  trifle  with  me  !  "  she  exclaimed,  clasping 
her  hands  and  looking  at  her  father  in  distressful  anx- 
iety ;  "don't  you  see  that  you  are  wringing  my  heart 
and  destroying  my  beliefs  with  your  jokes." 

"  God  forbid  !  I  have  told  you  the  exact  truth." 

"  You  are  very  kind,  father,"  she  said  after  a  pause, 
and  with  a  sort  of  solemnitj'. 

"He  has  kept  }Tour  letters,"  resumed  the  colonel; 
"  now  suppose  the  rash  caresses  of  your  soul  had  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  one  of  those  poets  who,  as  Dumay 
says,  light  their  cigars  with  them?" 

"  Oh  !  — you  are  going  too  far." 

"  Canalis  told  him  so." 

"  Has  Dumay  seen  Canalis?  " 
13 


194  Modeste   Mignon. 

"  Yes,"  answered  her  father. 

The  two  walked  along  in  silence. 

"  So  this  is  why  that  gentleman"  resumed  Modeste, 
"  told  me  so  much  harm  of  poets  and  poetry  ;  no  won- 
der the  little  secretary  said —  Why,"  she  added,  inter- 
rupting herself,  "  his  virtues,  his  noble  qualities,  his 
fine  sentiments  are  nothing  but  an  epistolary  theft ! 
The  man  who  steals  glory  and  a  name  may  very 
likely—" 

U — break  locks,  steal  purses,  and  cut  people's 
throats  on  the  highway,"  cried  the  colonel.  "  Ah, 
you  young  girls,  that 's  just  like  you,  —  with  your  per- 
emptory opinions  and  your  ignorance  of  life.  A  man 
who  once  deceives  a  woman  was  born  under  the  scaffold 
on  which  he  ought  to  die."  < 

This  ridicule  stopped  Modeste's  effervescence  for  a 
moment  at  least,  and  again  there  was  silence. 

"  My  child,"  said  the  colonel,  presently,  u  men  in 
society,  as  in  nature  everywhere,  are  made  to  win  the 
hearts  of  women,  and  women  must  defend  themselves. 
You  have  chosen  to  invert  the  parts.  Was  that  wise  ? 
Everything  is  false  in  a  false  position.  The  first 
wrong-doing  was  yours.  No,  a  man  is  not  a  monster 
because  he  seeks  to  please  a  woman  ;  it  is  our  right  to 
win  her  by  aggression  with  all  its  consequences,  short 
of  crime  and  cowardice.  A  man  may  have  many  vir- 
tues even  if  he  does  deceive  a  woman ;  if  he  deceives 
her,  it  is  because  he  finds  her  wanting  in  some  of  the 
treasures  that  he  sought  in  her.  None  but  a  queen,  an 
actress,  or  a  woman  placed  so  far  above  a  man  that  she 
seems  to  him  a  queen,  can  go  to  him  of  herself  without 
incurring  blame  —  and  for  a  young  girl  to  do  it !    Why, 


Modeste   Mignon.  19.*> 

she  is  false  to  all  that  God  has  given  her  that  is  sacred 
and  lovely  and  noble,  —  no  matter  with  what  grace  or 
what  poetry  or  what  precautions  she  surrounds  her 
fault." 

"To  seek  the  master  and  find  the  servant!"  she 
said  bitterly,  "  oh  !  I  can  never  recover  from  it !  " 

"  Nonsense !  Monsieur  Ernest  de  La  Briere  is,  to 
my  thinking,  fully  the  equal  of  the  Baron  de  Canalis. 
He  was  private  secretary  of  a  cabinet  minister,  and  he 
is  now  counsel  for  the  Court  of  Claims  ;  he  has  a  heart, 
and  he  adores  you,  but  —  he  does  not  write  verses. 
No,  I  admit,  he  is  not  a  poet ;  but  for  all  that  he  may 
have  a  heart  full  of  poetry.  At  any  rate,  my  dear 
girl,"  added  her  father,  as  Modeste  made  a  gesture  of 
disgust,  "you  are  to  see  both  of  them,  the  sham  and 
the  true  Canalis  —  " 

"Oh,  papa!  — " 

"  Did  you  not  swear  just  now  to  obey  me  in  every- 
thing, even  in  the  affair  of  your  marriage?  Well,  I 
allow  you  to  choose  which  of  the  two  you  like  best  for 
a  husband.  You  have  begun  by  a  poem,  you  shall 
finish  with  a  bucolic,  andtry  if  you  can  discover  the 
real  character  of  these  gentlemen  here,  in  the  country, 
on  a  few  hunting  or  fishing  excursions." 

Modeste  bowed  her  head  and  walked  home  with  her 
father,  listening  to  what  he  said  but  replying  only  in 
monosyllables. 


196  Modeste   Mignon. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

DISENCHANTED. 

The  poor  girl  had  fallen  humiliated  from  the  alp  she 
had  scaled  in  search  of  her  eagle's  nest,  into  the  mud 
of  the  swamp  below,  where  (to  use  the  poetic  language 
of  an  author  of  our  day)  "  after  feeling  the  soles  of 
her  feet  too  tender  to  tread  the  broken  glass  of  reality, 
Imagination  —  which  in  that  delicate  bosom  united  the 
whole  of  womanhood,  from  the  violet-hidden  reveries 
of  a  chaste  young  girl  to  the  passionate  desires  of  the 
sex  —  had  led  her  into  enchanted  gardens  where, 
oh,  bitter  sight!  she  now  saw,  springing  from  the 
ground,  not  the  sublime  flower  of  her  fancy,  but  the 
hair}',  twisted  limbs  of  the  black  mandragora."  Mo- 
deste suddenly  found  herself  brought  down  from  the 
mystic  heights  of  her  love  to  a  straight,  flat  road  bor- 
dered with  ditches,  —  in  short  the  work-day  path  of 
common  life.  What  ardent,  aspiring  soul  would  not 
have  been  bruised  and  broken  by  such  a  fall?  Whose 
feet  were  these  at  which  she  had  shed  her  thoughts? 
The  Modeste  who  re-entered  the  Chalet  was  no  more 
the  Modeste  who  had  left  it  two  hours  earlier  than  an 
actress  in  the  street  is  like  an  actress  on  the  boards. 
She  fell  into  a  state  of  numb  depression  that  was  piti- 
ful to  see.  The  sun  was  darkened,  nature  veiled  itself, 
even  the   flowers    no    longer   spoke  to  her.     Like    all 


Modeste   Mignon.  197 

young  girls  with  a  tendency  to  extremes,  she  drank  too 
deeply  of  the  cup  of  disillusion.  She  fought  against 
reality,  and  would  not  bend  her  neck  to  the  yoke  of 
family  and  conventions  ;  it  was,  she  felt,  too  heavy,  too 
hard,  too  crushing.  She  would  not  listen  to  the  conso- 
lations of  her  father  and  mother,  and  tasted  a  sort  of 
savage  pleasure  in  letting  her  soul  suffer  to  tfie  utmost. 

"  Poor  Butscha  was  right/'  she  said  one  evening. 

The  words  indicate  the  distance  she  travelled  in 
a  short  space  of  time  and  in  gloomy  sadness  across  the 
barren  plain  of  reality.  Sadness,  when  caused  by  the 
overgrowth  of  hope,  is  a  disease,  —  sometimes  a  fatal 
one.  It  would  be  no  mean  object  for  physiology  to 
search  out  in  what  ways  and  by  what  means  Thought 
produces  the  same  internal  disorganization  as  poison ; 
and  how  it  is  that  despair  affects  the  appetite,  destroys 
the  pylorus,  and  changes  all  the  physical  conditions  of 
the  strongest  life.  Such  was  the  case  with  Modeste. 
In  three  short  days  she  became  the  image  of  morbid 
melancholy ;  she  did  not  sing,  she  could  not  be  made  to 
smile.  Charles  Mignon,  becoming  uneasy  at  the  non- 
arrival  of  the  two  friends,  thought  of  going  to  fetch 
them,  when,  on  the  evening  of  the  fifth  da}-,  he  received 
news  of  their  movements  through  Latournelle. 

Canalis,  excessively  delighted  at  the  idea  of  a  rich 
marriage,  was  determined  to  neglect  nothing  that  might 
help  him  to  cut  out  La  Briere,  without,  however,  giv- 
ing La  Briere  a  chance  to  reproach  him  for  having 
violated  the  laws  of  friendship.  The  poet  felt  that 
nothing  would  lower  a  lover  so  much  in  the  eyes  of  a 
young  girl  as  to  exhibit  him  in  a  ^subordinate  position  ; 
and  he  therefore  proposed  to  La  Briere,  in  the  most 


198  Modeste   Mignon. 


natural  manner,  to  take  a  little  country-house  at  In- 
gouville  for  a  month,  and  live  there  together  on  pre- 
tence of  requiring  sea-air.  As  soon  as  La  Briere,  who 
at  first  saw  nothing  amiss  in  the  proposal,  had  con- 
sented, Canal  is  declared  that  he  should  pay  all  ex- 
penses, and  he  sent  his  valet  to  Havre,  telling  him  to 
see  Monsieur  Latournelle  and  get  his  assistance  in 
choosing  the  house,  —  well  aware  that  the  notary  would 
repeat  all  particulars  to  the  Mignons.  Ernest  and 
Canalis  had,  as  may  well  be  supposed,  talked  over  all 
the  aspects  of  the  affair,  and  the  rather  prolix  Ernest 
had  given  a  goocl  many  useful  hints  to  his  rival.  The 
valet,  understanding  his  master's  wishes,  fulfilled  them 
to  the  letter ;  he  trumpeted  the  arrival  of  the  great 
poet,  for  whom  the  doctors  advised  sea-air  to  restore 
his  health,  injured  as  it  was  by  the  double  toils  of  lit- 
erature and  politics.  This  important  personage  wanted 
a  house,  which  must  have  at  least  such  and  such  a 
number  of  rooms,  as  he  would  bring  with  him  a  secre- 
tary, cook,  two  servants,  and  a  coachman,  not  counting 
himself,  Germain  Bonnet,  the  valet.  The  carriage, 
selected  and  hired  for  a  month  by  Canalis,  was  a  pretty 
one ;  and  Germain  set  about  finding  a  pair  of  fine 
horses  which  would  also  answer  as  saddle-horses,  —  for, 
as  he  said,  monsieur  le  baron  and  his  secretary  took 
horseback  exercise.  Under  the  eyes  of  little  Latour- 
nelle, who  went  with  him  to  various  houses,  Germain 
made  a  good  deal  of  talk  about  the  secretar}T,  rejecting 
two  or  three  because  there  was  no  suitable  room  for 
Monsieur  de  La  Briere. 

"  Monsieur  le  baron,"  he  said  to  the  notary,  "  makes 
his  secretary  quite  his  best  friend.     Ah !  I  should  be 


Modeste   Mignon.  199 

well  scolded  if  Monsieur  de  La  Briere  were  not  as  well 
treated  as  monsieur  le  baron  himself;  and  after  all, 
you  know,  Monsieur  de  La  Briere  is  a  lawyer  in  my 
master's  court." 

Germain  never  appeared  in  public  unless  punctil- 
iously dressed  in  black,  with  spotless  gloves,  well- 
polished  boots,  and  otherwise  as  well  apparelled  as  a 
lawyer.  Imagine  the  effect  he  produced  in  Havre,  and 
the  idea  people  took  of  the  great  poet  from  this  sample 
of  him  !  The  valet  of  a  man  of  wit  and  intellect  ends 
by  getting  a  little  wit  and  intellect  himself  which  has 
rubbed  off  from  his  master.  Germain  did  not  overplay 
his  part ;  he  was  simple  and  good-humored,  as  Canalis 
had  instructed  him  to  be.  Poor  La  Briere  was  in  bliss- 
ful ignorance  of  the  harm  Germain  was  doing  to  his 
prospects,  and  the  depreciation  his  consent  to  the 
arrangement  had  brought  upon  him ;  it  is,  however, 
true  that  some  inkling  of  the  state  of  things  rose  to 
Modeste's  ears  from  these  lower  regions. 

Canalis  had  arranged  to  bring  his  secretary  in  his 
own  carriage,  and  Ernest's  unsuspicious  nature  did  not 
perceive  that  he  was  putting  himself  in  a  false  position 
until  too  late  to  rerned}'  it.  The  delay  in  the  arrival  of 
the  pair  which  had  troubled  Charles  Mignon  was  caused 
\>y  the  painting  of  the  Canalis  arms  on  the  panels  of 
the  carriage,  and  by  certain  orders  given  to  a  tailor ; 
for  the  poet  neglected  none  of  the  innumerable  details 
which  might,  even  the  smallest  of  them,  influence  a 
young  girl. 

"  It  is  all  right,"  said  Latournelle  to  Mignon  on  the 
sixth  day.  tfcThe  baron's  valet  has  hired  Madame 
Amaury's  villa  at  San  vie,  all  furnished,  for  seven  hun- 


/ 


200  Modeste   Mignon. 

dred  francs  ;  he  has  written  to  his  master  that  he  ma}T 
start,  and  that  all  will  be  ready  on  his  arrival.  So  the 
two  gentlemen  will  be  here  Sunday.  I  have  also  had 
a  letter  from  Butscha ;  here  it  is ;  it 's  not  long : 
4  My  dear  master,  —  I  cannot  get  back  till  Sunday. 
Between  now  and  then  I  have  some  very  important 
inquiries  to  make  which  concern  the  happiness  of  a 
person  in  whom  you  take  an  interest.' " 

The  announcement  of  this  arrival  did  not  rouse 
Modeste  from  her  gloom  ;  the  sense  of  her  fall  and  the 
bewilderment  of  her  mind  were  still  too  great,  and  she 
was  not  nearly  as  much  of  a  coquette  as  her  father 
thought  her  to  be.  There  is,  in  truth,  a  charming  and 
permissible  coquetry,  that  of  the  soul,  which  may  claim 
to  be  love's  politeness.  Charles  Mignon,  when  scolding 
his  daughter,  failed  to  distinguish  between  the  mere 
desire  of  pleasing  and  the  love  of  the  mind,  —  the  thirst 
for  love,  and  the  thirst  for  admiration.  Like  every 
true  colonel  of  the  Empire  he  saw  in  this  correspond- 
ence, rapidly  read,  only  the  young  girl  who  had 
thrown  herself  at  the  head  of  a  poet ;  but  in  the  letters 
which  we  were  forced  for  lack  of  space  to  suppress,  a 
better  judge  would  have  admired  the  dignified  and 
gracious  reserve  which  Modeste  had  substituted  for  the 
rather  aggressive  and  light-minded  tone  of  her  first 
letters.  The  father,  however,  was  only  too  cruelly 
right  on  one  point.  Modeste's  last  letter,  which  we 
have  read,  had  indeed  spoken  as  though  the  marriage 
were  a  settled  fact,  and  the  remembrance  of  that  letter 
filled  her  with  shame ;  she  thought  her  father  veiy 
-harsh  and  cruel  to  force  her  to  receive  a  man  unworthy 
of  her,  yet  to  whom  her  soul  had  flown,  as  it  were,  bare. 


Modeste   Mignon.  201 

She  questioned  Dumay  about  his  interview  with  the 
poet,  she  inveigled  him  into  relating  its  every  detail, 
and  she  did  not  think  Canalis  as  barbarous  as  the 
lieutenant  had  declared  him.  The  thought  of  the  beau- 
tiful casket  which  held  the  letters  of  the  thousand  and 
one  women  of  this  literary  Don  Juan  made  her  smile, 
and  she  was  strongly  tempted  to  say  to  her  father :  "  I 
am  not  the  only  one  to  write  to  him ;  the  elite  of  my 
sex  send  their  leaves  for  the  laurel  wreath  of  the 
poet." 

During  this  week  Modeste's  character  underwent  a 
^ranslbrmation.  The  catastrophe  —  and  it  was  a  great 
one  to  her  poetic  nature  —  roused  a  faculty  of  discern- 
ment and  also  the  malice  latent  in  her  girlish  heart,  in 
which  her  suitors  were  about  to  encounter  a  formidable 
adversary.  It  is  a  fact  that  when  a  young  woman's 
heart  is  chilled  her  head  becomes  clear ;  she  observes 
with  great  rapidity  of  judgment,  and  with  a  tinge  of 
pleasantry  which  Shakspeare's  Beatrice  so  admirably 
represents  in  "Much  Ado  about  Nothing."  Modeste 
was  seized  with  a  deep  disgust  for  men,  now  that  the 
most  distinguished  among  them  had  betraj^ed  her  hopes. 
When  a  woman  loves,  what  she  takes  for  disgust  is 
simply  the  ability  to  see  clearly  ;  but  in  matters  of  sen- 
timent she  is  never,  especially  if  she  is  a  young  girl,  in  a 
condition  to  see  clearly.  If  she  cannot  admire,  she  de- 
spises. And  so,  after  passing  though  terrible  struggles 
of  the  soul,  Modeste  necessarily  put  on  the  armor  on 
which,  as  she  had  once  declared,  the  word  u  Disdain" 
was  engraved.  After  reaching  that  point  she  was  able, 
in  the  character  of  uninterested  spectator,  to  take  part 
in    what  she   was    pleased  to  call  the   "  farce   of  the 


202  Modeste   Mignon. 


suitors,"  a  performance  in  which  she  herself  was  about 
to  play  the  role  of  heroine.  She  particularly  set  before 
her  mind  the  satisfaction  of  humiliating  Monsieur  de  La 
Briere. 

u  Modeste  is  saved,"  said  Madame  Mignon  to  her 
husband;  "  she  wants  to  revenge  herself  on  the  false 
Canalis  by  trying  to  love  the  real  one." 

Such  in  truth  was  Modeste's  plan.  It  was  so  utterly 
commonplace  that  her  mother,  to  whom  she  confided 
her  griefs,  advised  her  on  the  contrary  to  treat  Mon- 
sieur de  La  Briere  with  extreme  politeness. 


Modeste  Mignon.  203 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

A   THIRD    SUITOR. 

"  Those  two  young  men,"  said  Madame  Latournelle, 
on  the  Saturday  evening,  "  have  no  idea  how  many 
spies  they  have  on  their  tracks.  We  are  eight  in  all, 
on  the  watch." 

"  Don't  say  two  young  men,  wife  ;  say  three  !  "  cried 
little  Latournelle,  looking  round  him.  "  Gobenheim  is 
not  here,  so  I  can  speak  out." 

Modeste  raised  her  head,  and  everybody,  imitating 
Modeste,  raised  theirs  and  looked  at  the  notary. 

"Yes,  a  third  lover  —  and  he  is  something  like  a 
lover — offers  himself  as  a  candidate." 

"  Bah  !  "  exclaimed  the  colonel. 

"I  speak  of  no  less  a  person,"  said  Latournelle, 
pompously,  "  than  Monsieur  le  Due  d'Herouville, 
Marquis  de  Saint-Sever,  Due  de  Nivron,  Comte  de 
Bayeux,  Vicomte  d'Essigny,  grand  equerry  and  peer  of 
France,  knight  of  the  Spur  and  the  Golden  Fleece, 
grandee  of  Spain,  and  son  of  the  last  governor  of  Nor- 
mandy. He  saw  Mademoiselle  Modeste  at  the  time 
when  he  was  staying  with  the  Vilquins,  and  he  regretted 
then  —  as  his  notary,  who  came  from  Bayeux  3-esterday, 
tells  me  —  that  she  was  not  rich  enough  for  him  ;  for  his 
father  recovered  nothing  but  the  estate  of  Herouville  on 
his  return  to  France,  and  that  is  saddled  with  a  sister. 


204  Modeste   Mignon. 

The  young  duke  is  thirty-three  years  old.  I  am  defini- 
tively charged  to  lay  these  proposals  before  you,  Mon- 
sieur le  comte,"  added  the  notary,  turning  respectfully 
to  the  colonel. 

"  Ask  Modeste  if  she  wants  another  bird  in  her 
cage,"  replied  the  count ;  "  as  far  as  I  am  concerned,  I 
am  willing  that  my  lord  the  grand  equerry  shall  pay 
her  attention." 

Notwithstanding  the  care  with  which  Charles  Mignon 
avoided  seeing  people,  and  though  he  sta}7ed  in  the 
Chalet  and  never  went  out  without  Modeste,  Goben- 
heim  had  reported  Dumay's  wealth;  for  Dumay  had 
said  to  him  when  giving  up  his  position  as  cashier : 
"  I  am  to  be  bailiff  for  my  colonel,  and  all  my  fortune, 
except  what  my  wife  needs,  is  to  go  to  the  children  of 
our  little  Modeste."  Every  one  in  Havre  had  therefore 
propounded  the  same  question  that  the  notary  had  al- 
ready put  to  himself:  "  If  Dumay's  share  in  the  pro- 
fits is  six  hundred  thousand  francs,  and  he  is  going  to 
be  Monsieur  Mignon's  bailiff,  then  Monsieur  Mignon 
must  certainly  have  a  colossal  fortune.  He  arrived  at 
Marseilles  on  a  ship  of  his  own,  loaded  with  indigo ; 
and  they  say  at  the  Bourse  that  the  cargo,  not  counting 
the  ship,  is  worth  more  than  he  gives  out  as  his  whole 
fortune." 

The  colonel  was  unwilling  to  dismiss  the  servants  he 
had  brought  back  with  him,  whom  he  had  chosen  with 
care  during  his  travels ;  and  he  therefore  hired  a  house 
for  them  in  the  lower  part  of  Ingouville,  where  he  in- 
stalled his  valet,  cook,  and  coachman,  all  negroes,  and 
three  mulattoes  on  whose  fidelity  he  could  rely.  The 
coachman  was  told  to  search  for  saddle-horses  for  Ma- 


Modeste   Mignon.  205 

demoiselle  and  for  his  master,  and  for  carriage-horses 
for  the  caleche  in  which  the  colonel  and  the  lieutenant 
had  returned  to  Havre.  That  carriage,  bought  in 
Paris,  was  of  the  latest  fashion,  and  bore  the  arms  of 
La  Bastie,  surmounted  by  a  count's  coronet.  These 
things,  insignificant  in  the  eyes  of  a  man  who  for  four 
years  had  been  accustomed  to  the  unbridled,  luxury  of 
the  Indies  and  of  the  English  merchants  at  Canton, 
were  the  subject  of  much  comment  among  the  business 
men  of  Havre  and  the  inhabitants  of  Ingouville  and 
Graville.  Before  five  days  has  elapsed  the  rumor  of 
them  ran  from  one  end  of  Normandy  to  the  other  like 
a  train  of  gunpowder  touched  by  fire. 

1  *  Monsieur  Mignon  has  come  back  from  China  with 
millions,"  some  one  said  in  Rouen ;  "  and  it  seems  he 
was  made  a  count  in  mid-ocean." 

"  But  he  was  the  Comte  de  La  Bastie  before  the  Re- 
volution," answered  another. 

M  So  they  call  him  a  liberal  just  because  he  was  plain 
Charles  Mignon  for  twenty-five  years !  What  are  we 
coming  to  ?  "  said  a  third. 

Modeste  was  considered,  therefore,  notwithstanding 
the  silence  of  her  parents  and  friends,  as  the  richest 
heiress  in  Normandy,  and  all  eyes  began  once  more  to 
see  her  merits.  The  aunt  and  sister  of  the  Due  d'He- 
rouville  confirmed  in  the  aristocratic  salons  of  Bayeux 
Monsieur  Charles  Mignon's  right  to  the  title  and  arms 
of  count,  derived  from  Cardinal  Mignon,  for  whom  the 
Cardinal's  hat  and  tassels  were  added  as  a  crest.  The}' 
had  seen  Mademoiselle  de  La  Bastie  when  the}'  were 
staying  at  the  Vilquins,  and  their  solicitude  for  the  im- 
poverished head  of  their  house  now  became  active. 


206  Modeste   Mignon. 

"  If  Mademoiselle  de  La  Bastie  is  really  as  rich  as  she 
is  beautiful,"  said  the  aunt  of  the  young  duke,  "  she  is 
the  best  match  in  the  province.     She  at  least  is  noble." 

The  last  words  were  aimed  at  the  Vilquins,  with 
whom  they  had  not  been  able  to  come  to  terms,  after 
incurring  the  humiliation  of  staying  in  that  bourgeois 
household. 

Such  were  the  little  events  which,  contrary  to  the 
rules  of  Aristotle  and  of  Horace,  precede  the  introduc- 
tion of  another  person  into  our  story ;  but  the  portrait 
and  the  biography  of  this  personage,  this  late  arrival, 
shall  not  be  long,  taking  into  consideration  his  own 
diminutiveness.  The  grand  equerry  shall  not  take 
more  space  here  than  he  will  take  in  history.  Monsieur 
le  Due  d'  Herouville,  offspring  of  the  matrimonial  au- 
tumn of  the  last  governor  of  Normandy,  was  born 
during  the  emigration  in  1799,  at  Vienna.  The  old 
marechal,  father  of  the  present  duke,  returned  with  the 
king  in  1814,  and  died  in  1819,  before  he  was  able  to 
marry  his  son.  He  could  only  leave  him  the  vast 
chateau  of  Herouville,  the  park,  a  few  dependencies,  and 
a  farm  which  he  had  bought  back  with  some  difficulty ; 
all  of  which  returned  a  rental  of  about  fifteen  thousand 
francs  a  year.  Louis  XVIII.  gave  the  post  of  grand 
equerry  to  the  son,  who,  under  Charles  X.,  received  the 
usual  pension  of  twelve  thousand  francs  which  was 
granted  to  the  pauper  peers  of  France.  But  what  were 
these  twenty-seven  thousand  francs  a  year  and  the  salary 
of  grand  equerry  to  such  a  family?  In  Paris,  of  course, 
the  young  duke  used  the  king's  coaches,  and  had  a 
mansion  provided  for  him  in  the  rue  Saint-Thomas-du- 
Louvre,   near   the  royal   stables;   his  salary  paid  for 


Modeste   Mignon.  207 

his  winters  in  the  city,  and  his  twent}'-seven  thousand 
francs  for  the  summers  in  Normandy.  If  this  noble 
personage  was  still  a  bachelor  he  was  less  to  blame 
than  his  aunt,  who  was  not  versed  in  La  Fontaine's 
fables.  Mademoiselle  d'Herouville  made  enormous 
pretensions,  wholly  out  of  keeping  with  the  spirit  of 
the  times ;  for  great  names,  without  the  money  to 
keep  them  up,  can  seldom  win  rich  heiresses  among 
the  higher  French  nobilitj',  who  are  themselves  embar- 
rassed to  provide  for  their  sons  under  the  new  law  of  the 
equal  division  of  property.  To  marry  the  young  Due 
d'Herouville,  it  was  necessary  to  conciliate  the  great 
banking-houses  ;  but  the  haughty  pride  of  the  daughter 
of  the  house  alienated  these  people  by  cutting  speeches. 
During  the  first  years  of  the  Restoration,  from  1817  to 
1825,  Mademoiselle  d'Herouville,  though  in  quest  of 
millions,  refused,  among  others,  the  daughter  of  Mon- 
genod  the  banker,  with  whom  Monsieur  de  Fontaine 
afterwards  contented  himself. 

At  last,  having  lost  several  good  opportunities  to 
establish  her  nephew,  entirely  through  her  own  fault, 
she  was  just  considering  whether  the  property  of  the 
Nucingens  was  not  too  basely  acquired,  or  whether  she 
should  lend  herself  to  the  ambition  of  Madame  de 
Nucingen,  who  wished  to  make  her  daughter  a  duchess. 
The  king,  anxious  to  restore  the  d'Herouvilles  to  their 
former  splendor,  had  almost  brought  about  this  mar- 
riage, and  when  it  failed  he  openly  accused  Mademoiselle 
d'Herouville  of  folly.  In  this  way  the  aunt  made  the 
nephew  ridiculous,  and  the  nephew,  in  his  own  way,  was 
not  less  absurd.  When  great  things  disappear  the}-  leave 
crumbs,  frusteaux,  Rabelais  would  say,  behind  them  ; 


208  Modeste   Mignon. 

and  the  French  nobility  of  this  century  has  left  us  too 
many  such  fragments.  Neither  the  clergy  nor  the 
nobility  have  anything  to  complain  of  in  this  long  his- 
tory of  manners  and  customs.  Those  great  and  mag- 
nificent social  necessities  have  been  well  represented ; 
but  we  ought  surely  to  renounce  the  noble  title  of  his- 
torian if  we  are  not  impartial,  if  we  do  not  here  depict 
the  present  degeneracy  of  the  race  of  nobles,  although 
we  have  already  done  so  elsewhere,  —  in  the  character  of 
the  Comte  de  Mortsauf  (in  "  The  Lily  of  the  Valley  "), 
in  the  "  Duchesse  de  Langeais,"  and  the  very  nobleness 
of  the  nobility  in  the  Marquis  d'Espard.  How  then 
could  it  be  that  the  race  of  heroes  and  valiant  men 
belonging  to  the  proud  house  of  Herouville,  who  gave 
the  famous  marshal  to  the  nation,  cardinals  to  the 
church,  great  leaders  to  the  Valois,  knights  to  Louis 
XIV.,  was  reduced  to  a  little  fragile  being  smaller  than 
Butscha?  That  is  a  question  which  we  ask  ourselves 
in  more  than  one  salon  in  Paris  when  we  hear  the  great- 
est names  of  France  announced,  and  see  the  entrance 
of  a  thin,  pinched,  undersized  young  man,  scarcely  pos- 
sessing the  breath  of  life,  or  a  premature  old  one,  or 
some  whimsical  creature  in  whom  an  observer  can  with 
great  difficulty  trace  the  signs  of  a  past  grandeur.  The 
dissipations  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XV.,  the  orgies  of  that 
fatal  and  egotistic  period,  have  produced  an  effete  gen- 
eration, in  which  manners  alone  survive  the  nobler  van- 
ished qualities,  —  forms,  which  are  the  sole  heritage  our 
nobles  have  preserved.  The  abandonment  in  which 
Louis  XVI.  was  allowed  to  perish  may  thus  be  explained, 
with  some  slight  reservations,  as  a  wretched  result  of 
the  reign  of  Madame  de  Pompadour. 


Modeste  Mignon.  209 

The  grand  equerry,  a  fair  young  man  with  blue  eyes 
and  a  pallid  face,  was  not  without  a  certain  dignity 
of  thought;  but  his  thin,  undersized  figure,  and  the 
follies  of  his  aunt  who  had  taken  him  to  the  Vilquins 
and  elsewhere  to  pay  his  court,  rendered  him  extremely 
diffident.  The  house  of  Herouville  had  already  been 
threatened  with  extinction  by  the  deed  of  a»  deformed 
being  (see  the  Enfant  Maudit  in  u  Philosophical 
Studies").  The  grand  marshal,  that  being  the  family 
term  for  the  member  who  was  made  duke  by  Louis  XIII., 
married  at  the  age  of  eight}^.  The  young  duke  admired 
women,  but  he  placed  them  too  high  and  respected 
them  too  much ;  in  fact,  he  adored  them,  and  was  only 
at  his  ease  with  those  whom  he  could  not  respect.  This 
characteristic  caused  him  to  lead  a  double  life.  He 
found  compensation  with  women  of  easy  virtue  for  the 
worship  to  which  he  surrendered  himself  in  the  salons, 
or,  if  you  like,  the  boudoirs,  of  the  faubourg  Saint- 
Germain.  Such  habits  and  his  puny  figure,  his  suffer- 
ing face  with  its  blue  eyes  turning  upward  in  ecstasy, 
increased  the  ridicule  already  bestowed  upon  him, — very 
unjustly  bestowed,  as  it  happened,  for  he  was  full  of 
wit  and  delicacy;  but  his  wit,  which  never  sparkled, 
only  showed  itself  when  he  felt  at  ease.  Fanny  Beau- 
pre,  an  actress  who  was  supposed  to  be  his  nearest 
friend  (at  a  price),  called  him  "  a  sound  wine  so  care- 
fully corked  that  }ou  break  all  your  corkscrews."  The 
beautiful  Duchesse  de  Maufrigneuse,  whom  the  grand 
equerry  could  only  worship,  annihilated  him  with  a 
speech  which,  unfortunately,  was  repeated  from  mouth 
to  mouth,  like  all  such  pretty  and  malicious  sayings. 

"He  always  seems  to  me,"  she  said,  "like  one  of 
14 


210  Modeste   Mignon. 

those  jewels  of  fine  workmanship  which  we  exhibit  but 
never  wear,  and  keep  in  cotton-wool." 

Even'thing  about  him,  even  to  his  absurdly  contrast- 
ing title  of  grand  equerry,  amused  the  good-natured 
king,  Charles  X.,  and  made  him  laugh,  —  although  the 
Due  d'Herouville  justified  his  appointment  in  the  matter 
of  being  a  fine  horseman.  Men  are  like  books,  often 
understood  and  appreciated  too  late.  Modeste  had 
seen  the  duke  during  his  fruitless  visit  to  the  Vilquins, 
and  many  of  these  reflections  passed  through  her  mind 
as  she  watched  him  come  and  go.  But  under  the  cir- 
cumstances in  which  she  now  found  herself,  she  saw 
plainly  that  the  courtship  of  the  Due  d'Herouville 
would  save  her  from  being  at  the  mercy  of  either 
Canalis. 

44  I  see  no  reason/'  she  said  to  Latournelle,  "  wiry 
the  Due  d'Herouville  should  not  be  received.  I  have 
passed,  in  spite  of  our  indigence,"  she  continued,  with 
a  mischievous  look  at  her  father,  u  to  the  condition 
of  heiress.  I  shall  probably  end  by  publishing  a  bul- 
letin. Have  n't  you  observed  Gobenheim's  glances? 
They  have  quite  changed  their  character  within  a  week. 
He  is  in  despair  at  not  being  able  to  make  his  games 
of  whist  count  for  mute  adoration  of  my  charms." 

46  Hush,  my  darling!"  cried  Madame  Latournelle, 
44  here  he  comes." 

44  Old  Althor  is  in  despair,"  said  Gobenheim  to  Mon- 
sieur Mignon  as  he  entered. 

44  Why  ?  "  asked  the  Count. 

44  Vilquin  is  going  to  fail ;  and  the  Bourse  thinks  you 
are  worth  several  millions.    What  ill-luck  for  his  son  !  " 

44  No  one  knows,"  said  Charles  Mignon,  coldly,  "what 


Modeste   Mignon.  211 

my  liabilities  in  India  are  ;  and  I  do  not  intend  to  take 
the  public  into  my  confidence  as  to  my  private  affairs. 
Dumay,"  he  whispered  to  his  friend,  "if  Vilquin  is 
embarrassed  we  could  get  back  the  villa  by  paying  him 
what  he  gave  for  it." 

Such  was  the  general  state  of  things,  due  chiefly  to 
accident,  when  on  Sunda}^  morning  Canalis  and  La 
Briere  arrived,  with  a  courier  in  advance,  at  the  villa 
of  Madame  Amaury.  It  was  known  that  the  Due 
d'Herouville,  his  sister,  and  his  aunt  were  coming  the 
following  Tuesday  to  occup}T,  also  under  pretext  of  ill- 
health,  a  hired  house  at  Graville.  This  assemblage  of 
suitors  made  the  wits  of  the  Bourse  remark  that,  thanks 
to-J^adeinois^llfi._Mignon,  rents  would  rise  at  Ingou- 
ville.  "  If  this  goes  on,  she  will  have  a  hospital  here," 
said  the  younger  Mademoiselle  Vilquin,  vexed  at  not 
becoming  a  duchess. 

The  everlasting  comedy  of  "  The  Heiress,"  about 
to  be  played  at  the  Chalet ,  might  very  well  be  called, 
in  view  of  Modeste's  frame  of  mind,  "  The  Designs  of  a 
Young  Girl ;  "  for  since  the  overthrow  of  her  illusions 
she  had  fully  made  up  her  mind  to  give  her  hand  to  no 
man  whose  qualifications  did  not  fully  satisfy  her. 

The  two  rivals,  still  intimate  friends,  intended  to  pay 
their  first  visit  to  the  Chalet  on  the  evening  of  the  day 
succeeding  their  arrival.  They  had  spent  Sunday  and 
part  of  Monday  in  unpacking  and  arranging  Madame 
Amaury 's  house  for  a  month's  stay.  The  poet,  always 
calculating  effects,  wished  to  make  the  most  of  the 
probable  excitement  which  his  arrival  would  cause 
in  Havre,  and  which  would  of  course  echo  up  to  the 
Mignons.     Therefore,  in  his  role  of  a  man  needing  rest, 


212  Modeste   Mignon. 

he  did  not  leave  the  house.  La  Briere  went  twice  to 
walk  past  the  Chalet,  though  always  with  a  sense  of 
despair,  for  he  feared  he  had  displeased  Modeste,  and 
the  future  seemed  to  him  dark  with  clouds.  The  two 
friends  came  down  to  dinner  on  Monday  dressed  for  the 
momentous  visit.  La  Briere  wore  the  same  clothes  he 
had  so  carefully  selected  for  the  famous  Sunday ;  but 
he  now  felt  like  the  satellite  of  a  planet,  and  resigned 
himself  to  the  uncertainties  of  his  situation.  Canalis, 
on  the  other  hand,  had  carefully  attended  to  his  black 
coat,  his  orders,  and  all  those  little  drawing-room  ele- 
gancies, which  his  intimacy  with  the  Duchesse  de  Chau- 
lieu  and  the  fashionable  world  of  the  faubourg  had 
brought  to  perfection.  He  had  gone  into  the  minutiae 
of  dandyism,  while  poor  La  Briere  was  about  to  present 
himself  with  the  negligence  of  a  man  without  hope. 
Germain,  as  he  waited  at  dinner  could  not  help  smiling 
to  himself  at  the  contrast.  After  the  second  course, 
however,  the  valet  came  in  with  a  diplomatic,  that  is  to 
say,  uneasy  air. 

"  Does  Monsieur  le  baron  know,"  he  said  to  Canalis 
in  a  low  voice,  M  that  Monsieur  the  grand  equerry  is 
coming  to  Graville  to  get  cured  of  the  same  illness 
which  has  brought  Monsieur  de  La  Briere  and  Monsieur 
le  baron  to  the  sea-shore  ?  " 

"  What,  the  little  Due  d'Herouville  ?  " 

u  Yes,  monsieur. " 

uIs  he  coming  for  Mademoiselle  de  La  Bastie?" 
asked  La  Briere,  coloring. 

"  So  it  appears,  monsieur." 

"We  are  cheated!"  cried  Canalis  looking  at  La 
Briere. 


Modeste  Mignon.  213 

"Ah!"  retorted  Ernest  quickly,  "  that  is  the  first 
time  you  have  said,  '  we '  since  we  left  Paris :  it  has 
been  6 1 '  all  along." 

u  You  understood  me,"  cried  Canalis,  with  a  burst  of 
laughter.  "  But  we  are  not  in  a  position  to  struggle 
against  a  ducal  coronet,  nor  the  duke's  title,  nor  against 
the  waste  lands  which  the  Council  of  State"  have  just 
granted,  on  my  report,  to  the  house  of  Herouville." 

"  His  grace,"  said  La  Briere,  with  a  spice  of  malice 
that  was  nevertheless  serious,  "  will  furnish  you  with 
compensation  in  the  person  of  his  sister." 

At  this  instant,  the  Comte  de  La  Bastie  was  an- 
nounced ;  the  two  young  men  rose  at  once,  and  La 
Briere  hastened  forward  to  present  Canalis. 

"  I  wished  to  return  the  visit  that  you  paid  me  in 
Paris,"  said  the  count  to  the  young  lawyer,  "  and  I 
knew  that  by  coming  here  I  should  have  the  double 
pleasure  of  meeting  one  of  our  great  living  poets." 

"Great!  —  Monsieur,"  replied  the  poet,  smiling, 
M  no  one  can  be  great  in  a  century  prefaced  by  the 
reign  of  a  Napoleon.  We  are  a  tribe  of  would-be 
great  poets  ;  besides,  second-rate  talent  imitates  genius 
nowadays,  and  renders  real  distinction  impossible." 

u  Is  that  the  reason  why  you  have  thrown  yourself 
into  politics  ?  "  asked  the  count. 

"  It  is  the  same  thing  in  that  sphere,"  said  the  poet ; 
"  there  are  no  statesmen  in  these  daj's,  only  men  who 
handle  events  more  or  less.  Look  at  it,  monsieur ; 
under  the  system  of  government  that  we  derive  from 
the  Charter,  which  makes  a  tax-list  of  more  importance 
than  a  coat-of-arms,  there  is  absolutely  nothing  solid  ex- 
cept that  which  you  went  to  seek  in  China,  —  wealth." 


214  Modeste  Mignon. 

Satisfied  with  himself  and  with  the  impression  he  was 
making  on  the  prospective  father-in-law,  Canalis  turned 
to  Germain. 

"  Serve  the  coffee  in  the  salon,"  he  said,  inviting 
Monsieur  de  La  Bastie  to  leave  the  dining-room. 

"  I  thank  you  for  this  visit,  monsieur  le  comte,"  said 
La  Briere;  "it  saves  me  from  the  embarrassment  of 
presenting  my  friend  to  you  in  your  own  house.  You 
have  a  heart,  and  you  have  also  a  quick  mind." 

"  Bah !  the  ready  wit  of  Provence,  that  is  all,"  said 
Charles  Mignon. 

"  Ah,  do  you  come  from  Provence?  "  cried  Canalis. 

"  You  must  pardon  my  friend,"  said  La  Briere  ;  "  he 
has  not  studied,  as  I  have,  the  history  of  La  Bastie." 

At  the  word  friend  Canalis  threw  a  searching  glance 
at  Ernest. 

"  If  }T>ur  health  will  allow,"  said  the  count  to  the 
poet,  '  ■  I  shall  hope  to  receive  you  this  evening  under 
my  roof;  it  will  be  a  day  to  mark,  as  the  old  writer 
said  albo  notanda  lapillo.  Though  we  cannot  duly 
receive  so  great  a  fame  in  our  little  house,  yet  your  visit 
will  gratify  my  daughter,  whose  admiration  for  3'our 
poems  has  even  led  her  to  set  them  to  music." 

"You  have  something  better  than  fame  in  your 
house,"  said  Canalis;  "you  have  beauty,  if  I  am  to 
believe  Ernest." 

"  Yes,  a  good  daughter  ;  but  you  will  find  her  rather 
countrified,"  said  Charles  Mignon. 

"  A  country  girl  sought  by  the  Due  d'Herouville," 
remarked  Canalis,  dr}Try. 

"Oh!"  replied  Monsieur  Mignon,  with  the  perfid- 
ious good-humor  of  a  Southerner,  "  I  leave  my  daughter 


Modeste  Mignon.  215 

free.  Dukes,  princes,  commoners,  —  they  are  all  the 
same  to  me,  even  men  of  genius.  I  shall  make  no 
pledges,  and  whoever  my  Modeste  chooses  will  be  my 
son-in-law,  or  rather  my  son,"  he  added,  looking  at 
La  Briere.  "  It  could  not  be  otherwise.  Madame 
de  La  Bastie  is  German.  She  has  never  adopted  our 
etiquette,  and  I  let  my  two  women  lead  me  'their  own 
way.  I  have  always  preferred  to  sit  in  the  carriage 
rather  than  on  the  box.  I  can  make  a  joke  of  all  this  | 
at  present,  for  we  have  not  yet  seen  the  Due  d'Herou- 
ville,  and  I  do  not  believe  in  marriages  arranged  hy 
proxy,  any  more  than  I  believe  in  choosing  my  daugh- 
ter's husband." 

"That  declaration  is  equally  encouraging  and  dis- 
couraging to  two  young  men  who  are  searching  for  the 
philosopher's  stone  of  happiness  in  marriage,"  said 
Canalis. 

14  Don't  you  consider  it  useful,  necessary,  and  even 
politic  to  stipulate  for  perfect  freedom  of  action  for  par- 
ents, daughters,  and  suitors?"  asked  Charles  Mignon. 

Canalis,  at  a  sign  from  La  Briere,  kept  silence.  The 
conversation  presently  became  unimportant,  and  after 
a  few  turns  round  the  garden  the  count  retired,  urging 
the  visit  of  the  two  friends. 

44  That 's  our  dismissal,"  cried  Canalis  ;  u  you  saw  it 
as  plainly  as  I  did.  Well,  in  his  place,  I  should  not 
hesitate  between  the  grand  equerry  and  either  of  us, 
charming  as  we  are." 

44  I  don't  think  so,"  said  La  Briere. "  '*  I  believe  that 
frank  soldier  came  here  to  satisfy  his  desire  to  see 
you,  and  to  warn  us  of  his  neutrality  while  receiving  us 
in  his  house.     Modeste,  in  love  with  your  fame,  and 


216  Modeste   Mignon. 

misled  by  my  person,  stands,  as  it  were,  between  the 
If         real  and  the  ideal,  between  poetry  and  prose.     I  am, 
unfortunately,  the  prose." 

"  Germain,"  said  Canalis  to  the  valet,  who  came  to 
take  away  the  coffee,  "  order  the  carriage  in  half  an 
hour.  We  will  take  a  drive  before  we  go  to  the 
Chalet." 


Modeste  Mignon.  217 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 

A   SPLENDID   FIRST   APPEARANCE.      * 

The  two  young  men  were  equally  impatient  to  see 
Modeste,  but  La  Briere  dreaded  the  interview,  while 
Canalis  approached  it  with  the  confidence  of  self-con- 
ceit. The  eagerness  with  which  La  Briere  had  met  the 
father,  and  the  flattery  of  his  attention  to  the  family 
pride  of  the  ex-merchant,  showed  Canalis  his  own  mal- 
adroitness,  and  determined  him  to  select  a  special  role. 
The  great  poet  resolved  to  pretend  indifference,  though 
all  the  while  displaying  his  seductive  powers ;  to  ap- 
pear to  disdain  the  young  lady,  and  thus  pique  her  self- 
love.  Trained  by  the  handsome  Duchesse  de  Chaulieu, 
he  was  bound  to  be  worthy  of  his  reputation  as  a  man 
who  knew  women,  when,  in  fact,  he  did  not  know  them 
at  all,  —  which  is  often  the  case  with  those  who  are  the 
happy  victims  of  an  exclusive  passion.  While  poor 
Ernest,  gloomily  ensconced  in  his  corner  of  the  caleche, 
gave  way  to  the  terrors  of  genuine  love,  and  foresaw 
instinctively  the  anger,  contempt,  and  disdain  of  an 
injured  and  offended  young  girl,  Canalis  was  preparing 
himself,  not  less  silently,  like  an  actor  making  ready 
for  an  important  part  in  a  new  play ;  certainly  neither 
of  them  presented  the  appearance  of  a  happy  man. 
Important  interests  were  involved  for  Canalis.  The 
mere  suggestion  of  his  desire  to  marry  would  bring 


218  Modeste   Mignon. 

about  a  rupture  of  the  tie  which  had  bound  him  for  the 
last  ten  years  to  the  Duchesse  de  Chaulieu.  Though 
he  had  covered  the  purpose  of  his  journey  with  the  vulgar 
pretext  of  needing  rest,  —  in  which,  by  the  bye,  women 
never  believe,  even  when  it  is  true,  —  his  conscience 
troubled  him  somewhat ;  but  the  word  "  conscience " 
seemed  so  Jesuitical  to  La  Briere  that  he  shrugged  his 
shoulders  when  the  poet  mentioned  his  scruples. 

44  Your  conscience,  my  friend,  strikes  me  as  nothing 
more  nor  less  than  a  dread  of  losing  the  pleasures  of 
vanity,  and  some  very  real  advantages  and  habits  by 
sacrificing  the  affections  of  Madame  de  Chaulieu ;  for, 
if  you  were  sure  of  succeeding  with  Modeste,  you  would 
renounce  without  the  slightest  compunction  the  wilted 
aftermath  of  a  passion  that  has  been  mown  and  well- 
raked  for  the  last  eight  years.  If  you  simply  mean 
that  you  are  afraid  of  displeasing  your  protectress,  should 
she  find  out  the  object  of  your  stay  here,  I  believe  you. 
To  renounce  the  duchess  and  yet  not  succeed  at  the 
Chalet  is  too  heavy  a  risk.  You  take  the  anxiety  of 
this  alternative  for  remorse." 

''You  have  no  comprehension  of  feelings,"  said  the 
poet,  irritably,  like  a  man  who  hears  truth  when  he 
expects  a  compliment. 

"That  is  what  a  bigamist  should  tell  the  jur}r,"  re- 
torted La  Briere,  laughing. 

This  epigram  made  another  disagreeable  impression 
on  Canalis.  He  began  to  think  La  Briere  too  witty  and 
too  free  for  a  secretary. 

The  arrival  of  an  elegant  caleche,  driven  by  a  coach- 
man in  the  Canalis  livery,  made  the  more  excitement 
at  the  Chalet  because  the  two  suitors  were  expected, 


Modeste   Mignon.  219 

and  all  the  personages  of  this  history  were  assembled 
to  receive  them,  except  the  duke  and  Butscha. 

"Which  is  the  poet?"  asked  Madame  Latournelle 
of  Dumay  in  the  embrasure  of  a  window,  where  she 
stationed  herself  as  soon  as  she  heard  the  wheels. 

4 'The  one  who  walks  like  a  drum-major,"  answered 
the  lieutenant. 

"  Ah ! "  said  the  notary's  wife,  examining  Canalis, 
who  was  swinging  his  body  like  a  man  who  knows  he 
is  being  looked  at.  The  fault  lay  with  the  great  lady 
who  flattered  him  incessantly  and  spoiled  him,  —  as  all 
women  older  than  their  adorers  invariably  spoil  and 
flatter  them ;  Canalis  in  his  moral  being  was  a  sort  of 
Narcissus.  When  a  woman  of  a  certain  age  wishes  to 
attach  a  man  forever,  she  begins  by  deifying  his  de- 
fects, so  as  to  cut  off  all  possibility  of  rivalry ;  for  a 
rival  is  never,  at  the  first  approach,  aware  of  the  super- 
fine flattery  to  which  the  man  is  accustomed.  Cox- 
combs are  the  product  of  this  feminine  manoeuvre, 
when  they  are  not  fops  by  nature.  Canalis,  taken 
young  by  the  handsome  duchess,  vindicated  his  affec- 
tations to  his  own  mind  by  telling  himself  that  they 
pleased  that  grande  dame,  whose  taste  was  law.  Such 
shades  of  character  ma}'  be  excessively  faint,  but  it  is 
improper  for  the  historian  not  to  point  them  out.  For 
instance,  Melchior  possessed  a  talent  for  reading  which 
was  greatly  admired,  and  much  injudicious  praise  had 
given  him  a  habit  of  exaggeration,  which  neither  poets 
nor  actors  are  willing  to  check,  and  which  made  people 
say  of  him  (always  through  De  Marsay)  that  he  no 
longer  declaimed,  he  bellowed  his  verses  ;  lengthening 
the  sounds  that  he  might   listen   to  himself.     In  the 


220  Modeste    Mignon. 

slang  of  the  green-room,  Canalis  "dragged  the  time." 
He  was  fond  of  exchanging  glances  with  his  hearers, 
throwing  himself  into  postures  of  self-complacency  and 
practising  those  tricks  of  demeanor  which  actors  call 
balangoires,  —  the  picturesque  phrase  of  an  artistic 
people.  Canalis  had  his  imitators,  and  was  in  fact  the 
head  of  a  school  of  his  kind.  This  habit  of  declama- 
tory chanting  slightly  affected  his  conversation,  as  we 
have  seen  in  his  interview  with  Dumay.  The  moment 
the  mind  becomes  finical  the  manners  follow  suit,  and 
the  great  poet  ended  by  studying  his  demeanor,  invent- 
ing attitudes,  looking  furtively  at  himself  in  mirrors, 
and  suiting  his  discourse  to  the  particular  pose  which 
he  happened  to  have  taken  up.  He  was  so  preoccupied 
with  the  effect  he  wished  to  produce,  that  a  practical 
joker,  Blondet,  had  bet  once  or  twice,  and  won  the 
wager,  that  he  could  nonplus  him  at  am^  moment  by 
merely  looking  fixedly  at  his  hair,  or  his  boots,  or  the 
tails  of  his  coat. 

These  airs  and  graces,  which  started  in  life  with  a 
passport  of  flowery  youth,  now  seemed  all  the  more 
stale  and  old  because  Melchior  himself  was  waning. 
Life  in  the  world  of  fashion  is  quite  as  exhausting  to 
men  as  it  is  to  women,  and  perhaps  the  twenty  years 
by  which  the  duchess  exceeded  her  lover's  age,  weighed 
more  heavily  upon  him  than  upon  her ;  for  to  the  eyes 
of  the  world  she  was  always  handsome,  —  without  rouge, 
without  wrinkles,  and  without  heart.  Alas !  neither 
men  nor  women  have  friends  who  are  friendly  enough 
to  warn  them  of  the  moment  when  the  fragrance  of 
their  modesty  grows  stale,  when  the  caressing  glance 
is  but  an  echo  of  the  stage,  when  the  expression  of  the 


rfl 


Modeste  Mignon.  221 

face  changes  from  sentiment  to  sentimentality,  and  the 
artifices  of  the  mind  show  their  rusty  edges.  Genius 
alone  renews  its  skin  like  a  snake ;  and  in  the  matter 
of  charm,  as  in  everything  else,  it  is  only  the  heart  that 
never  grows  old.  People  who  have  hearts  are  simple 
in  all  their  ways.  Now  Canalis,  as  we  know,  had  a 
shrivelled  heart.  He  misused  the  beauty  of  his  glance  by 
giving  it,  without  adequate  reason,  the  fixity  that  comes 
to  the  eyes  in  meditation.  In  short,  applause  was  to 
him  a  business,  in  which  he  was  perpetually  on  the  look- 
out for  gain.  His  style  of  paying  compliments,  charm- 
ing to  superficial  people,  seemed  insulting  to  others  of 
more  delicac}^,  by  its  triteness  and  the  cool  assurance  of 
its  cut-and-dried  flattery.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Mel- 
chior  lied  like  a  courtier.  He  remarked  without  blush- 
ing to  the  Due  de  Chaulieu,  who  made  no  impression 
whatever  when  he  was  obliged  to  address  the  Cham- 
ber as  minister  of  foreign  affairs,  "Your  excellency 
was  truly  sublime  !  "  Many  men  like  Canalis  are  purged 
of  their  affectations  by  the  administration  of  non-success 
in  little  doses. 

These  defects,  slight  in  the  gilded  salons  of  the  fau- 
bourg Saint-Germain,  where  every  one  contributes  his 
or  her  quota  of  absurdity,  and  where  these  particular 
forms  of  exaggerated  speech  and  affected  diction  — 
magniloquence,  if  you  please  to  call  it  so  —  are  sur- 
rounded by  excessive  luxury  and  sumptuous  toilettes, 
which  are  to  some  extent  their  excuse,  were  certain 
to  be  far  more  noticed  in  the  provinces,  whose  own 
absurdities  are  of  a  totally  different  type.  Canalis, 
by  nature  over-strained  and  artificial,  could  not  change 
his  form  ;  in  fact,  he  had  had  time  to  grow  stiff  in  the 


v 


222  Modeste   Mignon. 

mould  into  which  the  duchess  had  poured  him ;  more- 
over, he  was  thoroughly  Parisian,  or,  if  you  prefer  it, 
truly  French.  The  Parisian  is  amazed  that  everything 
everywhere  is  not  as  it  is  in  Paris ;  the  Frenchman,  as 
it  is  in  France.  Good  taste,  on  the  contrary,  demands 
that  we  adapt  ourselves  to  the  customs  of  foreigners 
without  losing  too  much  of  our  own  character,  —  as  did 
Alcibiades,  that  model  of  a  gentleman.  True  grace  is 
elastic ;  it  lends  itself  to  circumstances ;  it  is  in  har- 
mony with  all  social  centres ;  it  wears  a  robe  of  simple 
material  in  the  streets,  noticeable  only  by  its  cut,  in 
preference  to  the  feathers  and  flounces  of  middle-class 
vulgarity.  Now  Canalis,  instigated  by  a  woman  who 
loved  herself  much  more  than  she  loved  him,  wished  to 
lay  down  the  law  and  be,  everywhere,  such  as  he  him- 
self might  see  fit  to  be.  He  believed  he  carried  his  own 
public  with  him  wherever  he  went,  —  an  error  shared 
by  several  of  the  great  men  of  Paris. 

While  the  poet  made  a  studied  and  effective  entrance 
into  the  salon  of  the  Chalet,  La  Briere  slipped  in  behjniL 
him  like  a  person  of  no  account. 

"  Ha!  do  I  see  my  soldier?"  said  Canalis,  perceiv- 
ing Dumay,  after  addressing  a  compliment  to  Madame 
Mignon,  and  bowing  to  the  other  women.  "  Your  anx- 
ieties are  relieved,  are  the}'  not?"  he  said,  offering  his 
hand  effusively;  "  I  comprehend  them  to  their  fullest 
extent  after  seeing  mademoiselle.  I  spoke  to  you  of 
terrestrial  creatures,  not  of  angels." 

All  present  seemed  by  their  attitudes  to  ask  the 
meaning  of  this  speech. 

"  I  shall  always  consider  it  a  triumph,"  resumed  the 
poet,    observing  that  everybody  wished  for  an  expla- 


Modeste  Mignon.  223 

nation,  "to  have  stirred  to  emotion  one  of  those  men  of 
iron  whom  Napoleon  had  the  eye  to  find  and  make  the 
supporting  piles  on  which  he  tried  to  build  an  empire,  too 
colossal  to  be  lasting :  for  such  structures  time  alone  is 
the  cement.  But  this  triumph  —  why  should  I  be  proud 
of  it  ?  —  I  count  for  nothing.  It  was  the  triumph  of  ideas 
over  facts.  Your  battles,  my  dear  Monsieur,  Duma}r, 
youi  heroic  charges,  Monsieur  le  comte,  nay,  war  itself 
was  the  form  in  which  Napoleon's  idea  clothed  itself. 
Of  all  of  these  things,  what  remains?  The  sod  that 
covers  them  knows  nothing ;  harvests  come  and  go 
without  revealing  their  resting-place ;  were  it  not  for 
the  historian,  the  writer,  futurity  would  have  no  knowl- 
edge of  those  heroic  days.  Therefore  };our  fifteen  years 
of  war  are  now  ideas  and  nothing  more ;  that  which 
preserves  the  Empire  forever  is  the  poem  that  the  poets 
make  of  them.  A  nation  that  can  win  such  battles 
must  know  how  to  sing  them." 

Canalis  paused,  to  gather  by  a  glance  that  ran  round 
the  circle  the  tribute  of  amazement  which  he  expected 
of  provincials. 

"  You  must  be  aware,  monsieur,  of  the  regret  I  feel 
at  not  seeing  you,"  said  Madame  Mignon,  "  since  you 
compensate  me  with  the  pleasure  of  hearing  3Tou." 

Modeste,  determined  to  think  Canalis  sublime,  sat 
motionless  with  amazement ;  the  embroidery  slipped 
from  her  fingers,  which  held  it  only  by  the  needleful  of 
thread.  . 

"  Modeste,  this  is  Monsieur  Ernest  de  La  Briere.  \ 
Monsieur  Ernest,  my  daughter,"  said  the  count,  think-  I 
ing  the  secretary  too  much  in  the  background. 

The  young  girl  bowed  coldly,  giving  Ernest  a  glance 


224  Modeste   Mignon. 

which  was  meant  to  prove  to  every  one  present  that  she 
saw  him  for  the  first  time. 

"  Pardon  me,  monsieur,"  she  said  without  blushing ; 
"  the  great"  admiration  I  feel  for  the  greatest  of  our 
poets  is,  in  the  eyes  of  my  friends,  a  sufficient  excuse 
for  seeing  only  him." 

The  pure,  fresh  voice,  with  accents  like  that  of  Made- 
moiselle Mars,  charmed  the  poor  secretary,  already 
dazzled  by  Modeste's  beauty,  and  in  his  sudden  sur- 
prise he  answered  by  a  phrase  that  would  have  been 
sublime,  had  it  been  true. 

"  He  is  my  friend,"  he  said. 

"  Ah,  then  you  do  pardon  me,"  she  replied. 

"  He  is  more  than  a  friend,"  cried  Canalis  taking 
Ernest  by  the  shoulder  and  leaning  upon  it  like 
Alexander  on  Hephsestion,  "  we  love  each  other  as 
though  we  were  brothers  —  " 

Madame  Latournelle  cut  short  the  poet's  speech  by 
pointing  to  Ernest  and  saying  aloud  to  her  husband, 
"  Surely  that  is  the  gentleman  we  saw  at  church." 

"  Why  not?"  said  Charles  Mignon,  quickly,  observ- 
ing that  Ernest  reddened. 

Modeste  coldly  took  up  her  embroidery. 

"  Madame  may  be  right ;  I  have  been  twice  in  Havre 
lately,"  replied  La  Briere,  sitting  down  by  Dumay. 

Canalis,  charmed  with  Modeste's  beauty,  mistook  the 
admiration  she  expressed,  and  flattered  himself  he  had 
succeeded  in  producing  his  desired  effects. 

"  I  should  think  a  man  without  heart,  if  he  had  no 
devoted  friend  near  him,"  said  Modeste,  to  pick  up 
the  conversation  interrupted  by  Madame  Latournelle's 
awkwardness. 


Modeste  Mignon.  225 

M  Mademoiselle,  Ernest's  devotion  makes  me  almost 
think  myself  worth  something,"  said  Canalis  ;  "  for  my 
dear  Pylades  is  full  of  talent ;  he  was  the  right  hand  of 
the  greatest  minister  we  have  had  since  the  peace. 
Though  he  holds  a  fine  position,  he  is  good  enough  to 
be  my  tutor  in  the  science  of  politics ;  he  teaches  me 
to  conduct  affairs  and  feeds  me  with  his  experience, 
when  all  the  while  he  might  aspire  to  a  much  better 
situation.  Oh !  he  is  worth  far  more  than  I."  At  a 
gesture  from  Modeste  he  continued  gracefully  :  ' fc  Yes, 
the  poetry  that  I  express  he  carries  in  his  heart ;  and  if 
I  speak  thus  openly  before  him  it  is  because  he  has  the 
modesty  of  a  nun." 

"  Enough,  oh,  enough !  "  cried  La  Briere,  who  hardly 
knew  which  wa}'  to  look.  "  My  dear  Canalis,  you  re- 
mind me  of  a  mother  who  is  seeking  to  marry  off  her 
daughter." 

"  How  is  it,  monsieur,"  said  Charles  Mignon,  ad- 
dressing Canalis,  "  that  you  can  even  think  of  becom- 
ing a  political  character  ?  " 

"  It  is  abdication,"  said  Modeste,  "  for  a  poet ;  poli- 
tics are  the  resource  of  matter-of-fact  men." 

"Ah,  mademoiselle,  the  rostrum  is  to-day  the  great- 
est theatre  of  the  world  ;  it  has  succeeded  the  tourna- 
ments of  chivalry,  it  is  now  the  meeting-place  for  all 
intellects,  just  as  the  army  has  been  the  rallying-point 
of  courage." 

Canalis  stuck  spurs  into  his  charger  and  talked  for 
ten  minutes  on  political  life  :  * 4  Poetry  was  but  a  pref- 
ace to  the  statesman."  "  To-day  the  orator  has  be- 
come a  sublime  reasoner,  the  shepherd  of  ideas."  "  A 
poet  may  point  the  way  to  nations  or  individuals,  but 

15 


226  Modeste  Mignon. 

can  he  ever  cease  to  be  himself?  "  He  quoted  Chateau- 
briand and  declared  he  would  one  day  be  greater  on  the 
political  side  than  on  the  literary.  "The  forum  of 
France  was  to  be  the  pharos  of  humanity."  "  Oral 
battles  supplanted  fields  of  battle  :  there  were  sessions 
of  the  Chamber  finer  than  any  Austerlitz,  and  orators 
were  seen  to  be  as  lofty  as  generals ;  they  spent  their 
lives,  their  courage,  their  strength,  as  freely  as  those 
who  went  to  war."  "  Speech  was  surely  one  of  the 
most  prodigal  outlets  of  the  vital  fluid  that  man  had 
ever  known,"  etc. 

This  improvisation  of  modern  commonplaces,  clothed 
in  sonorous  phrases  and  newly  invented  words,  and  in- 
tended to  prove  that  the  Comte  de  Canalis  was  becom- 
ing one  of  the  glomes  of  the  French  government,  made 
a  deep  impression  upon  the  notary  and  Gobenheim,  and 
upon  Madame  Latournelle  and  Madame  Mignon.  Mo- 
deste looked  as  though  she  were  at  the  theatre,  in  an 
attitude  of  enthusiasm  for  an  actor,  —  very  much  like 
that  of  Ernest  toward  herself;  for  though  the  secre- 
tary knew  all  these  high-sounding  phrases  b}T  heart,  he 
listened  through  the  eyes,  as  it  were,  of  the  young  girl, 
and  grew  more  and  more  madly  in  love  with  her.  To 
this  true  lover,  Modeste  was  eclipsing  all  the  Modestes 
whom  he  had  created  as  he  read  her  letters  and  answered 
them. 

This  visit,  the  length  of  which  was  predetermined  by 
Canalis,  careful  not  to  allow  his  admirers  a  chance  to 
get  surfeited,  ended  by  an  invitation  to  dinner  on  the 
following  Monday. 

M  We  shall  not  be  at  the  Chalet,"  said  the  Comte  de 
La  Bastie.     "  Dumay  will  have  sole  possession  of  it. 


Modeste  Mignon.  227 

I  return  to  the  villa,  having  bought  it  back  under  a 
deed  of  redemption  within  six  months,  which  I  have 
to-day  signed  with  Monsieur  Vilquin." 

44 1  hope,"  said  Dumay,  "that  Vilquin  will  not  be 
able  to  return  you  the  sum  }Tou  have  just  lent  him,  and 
that  the  villa  will  remain  yours." 

44  It  is  an  abode  in  keeping  with  your  fortune, "  said 
Canalis. 

"  You  mean  the  fortune  that  I  am  supposed  to  have," 
replied  Charles  Mignon,  hastily. 

44  It  would  be  too  sad,"  said  Canalis  turning  to 
Modeste  with  a  charming  little  bow,  44  if  this  Madonna 
were  not  framed  in  a  manner  worthy  of  her  divine 
perfections." 

That  was  the  only  thing  Canalis  said  to  Modeste.  He 
affected  not  to  look  at  her,  and  behaved  like  a  man  to 
whom  all  idea  of  marriage  was  interdicted. 

44  Ah  !  my  dear  Madame  Mignon,"  cried  the  notary's 
wife,  as  soon  as  the  gravel  was  heard  to  grit  under  the 
feet  of  the  Parisians,  44  what  an  intellect !  " 

44  Is  he  rich?  —  that  is  the  question,"  said  Gobenheim. 

Modeste  was  at  the  window,  not  losing  a  single 
movement  of  the  great  poet,  and  paying  no  attention 
to  his  companion.  When  Monsieur  Mignon  returned 
to  the  salon,  and  Modeste,  having  received  a  last  bow 
from  the  two  friends  as  the  carriage  turned,  went  back 
to  her  seat,  a  weighty  discussion  took  place,  such  as 
provincials  invariably  hold  over  Parisians  after  a  first 
interview.  Gobenheim  repeated  his  phrase,  44Is  he 
rich?"  as  a  chorus  to  the  songs  of  praise  sung  by 
Madame  Latournelle,  Modeste,  and  her  mother. 

44  Rich!"  exclaimed  Modeste;  44what  can  that  sig- 


228  Modeste   Mignon. 

nify  !  Do  you  not  see  that  Monsieur  de  Canalis  is  one 
of  those  men  who  are  destined  for  the  highest  places  in 
the  State.  He  has  more  than  fortune ;  he  possesses 
that  which  gives  fortune." 

"  He  will  be  minister  or  ambassador,"  said  Monsieur 
Mignon. 

fc  l  That  won't  hinder  tax-payers  from  having  to  pay 
the  costs  of  his  funeral,"  remarked  the  notary. 

"  How  so?"  asked  Charles  Mignon. 

"He  strikes  me  as  a  man  who  will  waste  all  the 
fortunes  with  whose  gifts  Mademoiselle  Modeste  so 
liberally  endows  him,"  answered  Latournelle. 

"Modeste  can't  avoid  being  liberal  to  a  poet  who 
called  her  a  Madonna,"  said  Duma}',  sneering,  and 
faithful  to  the  repulsion  with  which  Canalis  had  origi- 
nally inspired  him. 

Gobenheim  arranged  the  whist-table  with  all  the 
more  persistency  because,  since  the  return  of  Monsieur 
Mignon,  Latournelle  and  Dumay  had  allowed  them- 
selves to  plaj-  for  ten  sous  points. 

"  Well,  my  little  darling,"  said  the  father  to  the 
daughter  in  the  embrasure  of  a  window.  "  Admit  that 
papa  thinks  of  everything.  If  you  send  your  orders 
this  evening  to  your  former  dressmaker  in  Paris,  and 
all  your  other  furnishing  people,  you  shall  show  yourself 
eight  da3rs  hence  in  all  the  splendor  of  an  heiress. 
Meantime  we  will  instal  ourselves  in  the  villa.  You 
already  have  a  pretty  horse,  now  order  a  habit ;  you 
owe  that  amount  of  civility  to  the  grand  equerry." 

u  All  the  more  because  there  will  be  a  number  of  us 
to  ride,"  said  Modeste,  who  was  recovering  the  colors 
of  health. 


Modeste   Mignon.  229 

11  The  secretary  did  not  say  much,"  remarked 
Madame  Mignon. 

"  A  little  fool,"  said  Madame  Latournelle  ;  "the  poet 
had  an  attentive  word  for  everybody.  He  thanked 
Monsieur  Latournelle  for  his  help  in  choosing  the 
house ;  and  said  he  must  have  taken  counsel  with  a 
woman  of  taste.  But  the  other  looked  as  gloomy  as  a 
Spaniard,  and  kept  his  eyes  fixed  on  Modeste  as  though 
he  would  like  to  swallow  her  whole.  If  he  had  even 
looked  at  me  I  should  have  been  afraid  of  him.,, 

"  He  had  a  pleasant  voice,"  said  Madame  Mignon. 

"No  doubt  he  came  to  Havre  to  inquire  about  the 
Mignons  in  the  interests  of  his  friend  the  poet,"  said 
Modeste,  looking  furtively  at  her  father.  "It  was  cer- 
tainly he  whom  we  saw  in  church." 

Madame  Dumay  and  Monsieur  and  Madame  Latour- 
nelle, accepted  this  as  the  natural  explanation  of 
Ernest's  journey. 


280  Modeste   Mignon. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

OF   WHICH   THE  AUTHOR  THINKS  A  GOOD   DEAL. 

"Do  you  know,  Ernest,"  cried  Canalis,  when  they 
had  driven  a  short  distance  from  the  house,  "I  don't 
see  any  marriageable  woman  in  society  in  Paris  who 
compares  with  that  adorable  girl." 

"Ah,  that  ends  it!"  replied  Ernest.  "She  loves 
you,  or  she  will  love  you  if  you  desire  it.  Your  fame 
won  half  the  battle.  Well,  you  may  now  have  it  all 
your  own  way.  You  shall  go  there  alone  in  future. 
Modeste  despises  me ;  she  is  right  to  do  so ;  and  I 
don't  see  any  reason  wiry  I  should  condemn  myself  to 
see,  to  love,  desire,  and  adore  that  which  I  can  never 
possess." 

After  a  few  consoling  remarks,  dashed  with  his  own 
satisfaction  at  having  made  a  new  version  of  Caesar's 
phrase,  Canalis  divulged  a  desire  to  break  with  the 
Duchesse  de  Chaulieu.  La  Briere,  totally  unable  to 
keep  up  the  conversation,  made  the  beauty  of  the  night 
an  excuse  to  be  set  down,  and  then  rushed  like  one 
possessed  to  the  seashore,  where  he  stayed  till  past 
ten,  in  a  half-demented  state,  walking  hurriedly  up  and 
down,  talking  aloud  in  broken  sentences,  sometimes 
standing  still  or  sitting  down,  without  noticing  the 
uneasiness  of  two  custom-house  officers  who  were  on 
the  watch.     After  loving  Modeste's  wit  and  intellect 


Modeste   Mignon.  231 

and  her  aggressive  frankness,  he  now  joined  adoration 
of  her  beauty  —  that  is  to  say,  love  without  reason,  love 
inexplicable  —  to  all  the  other  reasons  which  had  drawn 
him  ten  days  earlier,  to  the  church  in  Havre. 

He  returned  to  the  Chalet,  where  the  Pyrenees 
hounds  barked  at  hin\  till  he  was  forced  to  relinquish 
the  pleasure  of  gazing  at  Modeste's  windows.'  In  love, 
such  things  are  of  no  more  account  to  the  lover  than 
the  work  which  is  covered  by  the  last  layer  of  color  is 
to  an  artist ;  yet  they  make  up  the  whole  of  love,  just  as 
the  hidden  toil  is  the  whole  of  art.  Out  of  them  arise  the 
great  painter  and  the  true  lover  whom  the  woman  and 
the  public  end,  sometimes  too  late,  by  adoring. 

"Well  then!"  he  cried  aloud,  "I  will  stay,  I  will 
suffer,  I  will  love  her  for  myself  only,  in  solitude.  Mo- 
deste shall  be  my  sun,  my  life  ;  I  will  breathe  with  her 
breath,  rejoice  in  her  joys  and  bear  her  griefs,  be  she 
even  the  wife  of  that  egoist,  Canalis." 

"  That's  what  I  call  loving,  monsieur,"  said  a  voice 
which  came  from  a  shrub  by  the  side  of  the  road. 
"  Ha,  ha,  so  all  the  world  is  in  love  with  Mademoiselle 
de  La  Bastie  ?  " 

And  Butscha  suddenly  appeared  and  looked  at  La 
Briere.  La  Briere  checked  his  anger  when,  by  the 
light  of  the  moon,  he  saw  the  dwarf,  and  he  made  a 
few  steps  without  replying. 

"  Soldiers  who  serve  in  the  same  company  ought  to 
be  good  comrades,"  remarked  Butscha.  u  You  don't 
love  Canalis ;  neither  do  I." 

"  He  is  my  friend,"  replied  Ernest. 

"  Ha,  you  are  the  little  secretary?" 

u  You  are  to  know,  monsieur,  that  I  am  no  man's 


232  Modeste    Mignon. 

secretary.  I  have  the  honor  to  be  of  counsel  to  a  su- 
preme court  of  this  kingdom ." 

"  I  have  the  honor  to  salute  Monsieur  de  La  Briere," 
said  Butscha.  4  i  I  myself  have  the  honor  to  be  head 
clerk  to  Latournelle,  chief  councillor  of  Havre,  and  my 
position  is  a  better  one  than  3rours.  Yes,  I  have  had 
the  happiness  of  seeing  Mademoiselle  Modeste  de  La 
Bastie  nearly  every  evening  for  the  last  four  years,  and 
I  expect  to  live  near  her,  as  a  king's  servant  lives  in 
the  Tuileries.  If  they  offered  me  the  throne  of  Russia 
I  should  answer,  *  I  love  the  sun  too  well.'  Is  n't  that 
telling  you,  monsieur,  that  I  care  more  for  her  than  for 
myself?  I  am  looking  after  her  interests  with  the  most 
honorable  intentions.  Do  you  believe  that  the  proud 
Duchesse  de  Chaulieu  would  cast  a  favorable  eye  on  the 
happiness  of  Madame  de  Canalis  if  her  waiting- woman, 
who  is  in  love  with  Monsieur  Germain,  not  liking  that 
charming  valet's  absence  in  Havre,  were  to  say  to  her 
mistress  while  brushing  her  hair  —  " 

"  How  do  you  know  about  all  this?  "  said  La  Briere, 
interrupting  Butscha. 

"In  the  first  place,  I  am  clerk  to  a  notary,"  an- 
swered Butscha.  "But  haven't  you  seen  my  hump? 
It  is  full  of  resources,  monsieur.  I  have  made  nryself 
cousin  to  Mademoiselle  Philoxene  Jacmin,  born  at 
Honfleur,  where  my  mother  was  born,  a  Jacmin,  — 
there  are  eight  branches  of  the  Jacmins  at  Honfleur. 
So  my  cousin  Philoxene,  enticed  by  the  bait  of  a  highly 
improbable  fortune,  has  told  me  a  good  many  things." 

"  The  duchess  is  vindictive?"  said  La  Briere. 

"  Vindictive  as  a  queen,  Philoxene  says  ;  she  has 
never  yet  forgiven  the  duke  for  being  nothing  more 


Modeste   Mignon.  233 

than  her  husband,"  replied  Butscha.  u  She  hates  as 
she  loves.  I  know  all  about  her  character,  her  tastes, 
her  toilette,  her  religion,  and  her  manners ;  for  Philox- 
ene  stripped  her  for  me,  soul  and  corset.  I  went  to 
the  opera  expressly  to  see  her,  and  I  did  n't  grudge  the 
ten  francs  it  cost  me  —  I  don't  mean  the  play.  If  my 
imaginary  cousin  had  not  told  me  the  duchess' had  seen 
her  fifty  summers,  I  should  have  thought  I  was  over- 
generous  in  giving  her  thirty ;  she  has  never  known  a 
winter,  that  duchess  !  " 

u  Yes,"  said  La  Briere,  "  she  is  a  cameo  —  preserved 
because  it  is  stone.  Canalis  would  be  in  a  bad  way  if 
the  duchess  were  to  find  out  what  he  is  doing  here  ;  and 
I  hope,  monsieur,  that  you  will  go  no  further  in  this 
business  of  spying,  which  is  unworthy  of  an  honest 
man." 

"Monsieur,"  said  Butscha,  proudly;  "  for  me  Mo- 
deste is  my  country.  I  do  not  sp}T ;  I  foresee,  I  take 
precautions.  The  duchess  will  come  here  if  it  is  desir- 
able, or  she  will  stay  tranquilly  where  she  is,  according 
to  what  I  judge  best." 

"You?" 

"  And  how,  pray?" 

"  Ha,  that 's  it !  "  said  the  little  hunchback,  plucking 
a  blade  of  grass.  u  See  here!  this  herb  believes  that 
men  build  palaces  for  it  to  grow  in  ;  it  wedges  its  wa}r 
between  the  closest  blocks  of  marble,  and  brings  them 
down,  just  as  the  masses  forced  into  the  edifice  of  feu- 
dality have  brought  it  to  the  ground.  The  power  of  the 
feeble  life  that  can  creep  everywhere  is  greater  than  that 
of  the  mighty  behind  their  cannons.     I  am  one  of  three 


234  Modeste   Mignon. 


who  have  sworn  that  Modeste  shall  be  happy,  and  we 
would  sell  our  honor  for  her.  Adieu,  monsieur.  If  you 
truly  love  Mademoiselle  de  La  Bastie,  forget  this  con- 
versation and  shake  hands  with  me,  for  I  think  you  Jve 
got  a  heart.  I  longed  to  see  the  Chalet,  and  I  got  here 
just  as  she  was  putting  out  her  light.  I  saw  the  dogs 
rush  at  you,  and  I  overheard  your  words,  and  that  is 
why  I  take  the  liberty  of  saying  we  serve  in  the  same 
regiment  —  that  of  royal  devotion." 

"  Monsieur*,"  said  La  Briere,  wringing  the  hunch- 
back's hand,  M  would  you  have  the  friendliness  to  tell 
me  if  Mademoiselle  Modeste  ever  loved  any  one  with 
love  before  she  wrote  to  Canalis  ?  " 

"  Oh  !  "  exclaimed  Butscha,  in  an  altered  voice  ;  "  that 
thought  is  an  insult.  And  even  now,  who  knows  if  she 
really  loves?  does  she  know  herself?  She  is  enamoured 
of  genius,  of  the  soul  and  intellect  of  that  seller  of 
verses,  that  literary  quack ;  but  she  will  study  him,  we 
shall  all  study  him  ;  and  I  know  how  to  make  the  man's 
real  character  peep  out  from  under  that  turtle-shell  of 
fine  manners,  —  we  '11  soon  see  the  petty  little  head  of 
his  ambition  and  his  vanity !  "  cried  Butscha,  rubbing 
his  hands.  "  So,  unless  mademoiselle  is  desperately 
taken  with  him  —  " 

41  Oh !  she  was  seized  with  admiration  when  she  saw 
him,  as  if  he  were  something  marvellous,"  exclaimed 
La  Briere,  letting  the  secret  of  his  jealous}T  escape  him. 

"  If  he  is  a  loyal,  honest  fellow,  and  loves  her ;  if  he 
is  worthy  of  her ;  if  he  renounces  his  duchess,"  said 
Butscha,  - —  u  then  I  '11  manage  the  duchess  !  Here,  my 
dear  sir,  take  this  road,  and  you  will  get  home  in  ten 
minutes." 


Modeste   Mignon.  235 

But  as  they  parted,  Butscha  turned  back  and  hailed 
poor  Ernest,  who,  as  a  true  lover,  would  gladly  have 
stayed  there  all  night  talking  of  Modeste. 

"  Monsieur,"  said  Butscha,  u  I  have  not  yet  had  the 
honor  of  seeing  our  great  poet.  I  am  very  curious  to 
observe  that  magnificent  phenomenon  in  the  exercise  of 
his  functions.  Do  me  the  favor  to  bring  him  to  the 
Chalet  to-morrow  evening,  and  stay  as  long  as  possible  ; 
for  it  takes  more  than  an  hour  for  a  man  to  show  him- 
self for  what  he  is.  I  shall  be  the  first  to  see  if  he 
loves,  if  he  can  love,  or  if  he  ever  will  love  Mademoi- 
selle Modeste." 

"  You  are  very  young  to  —  " 

M  —  to  be  a  professor,"  said  Butscha,  cutting  short 
La  Briere.  u  Ha,  monsieur,  deformed  folks  are  born 
a  hundred  years  old.  And  besides,  a  sick  man  who 
has  long  been  sick,  knows  more  than  his  doctor ;  he 
knows  the  disease,  and  that  is  more  than  can  be  said 
for  the  best  of  doctors.  Well,  so  it  is  with  a  man  who 
cherishes  a  woman  in  his  heart  when  the  woman  is 
forced  to  disdain  him  for  his  ugliness  or  his  deformity  ; 
he  ends  by  knowing  so  much  of  love  that  he  becomes 
seductive,  just  as  the  sick  man  recovers  his  health ; 
stupidity  alone  is  incurable.  I  have  had  neither  father 
nor  mother  since  I  was  six  years  old  ;  I  am  now  twenty- 
five.  Public  charity  has  been  my  mother,  the  procu- 
reur  du  roi  my  father.  Oh !  don't  be  troubled,"  he 
added,  seeing  Ernest's  gesture;  "I  am  much  more 
lively  than  my  situation.  Well,  for  the  last  six  years, 
ever  since  a  woman's  eye  first  told  me  I  had  no  right  to 
love,  I  do  love,  and  I  study  women.  I  began  with  the 
ugly  ones,  for  it  is  best  to  take  the  bull  by  the  horns. 


236  Modeste   Mignon. 


an 


So  I  took  my  master's  wife,  who  has  certainly  been 
angel  to  me,  for  my  first  stud}\  Perhaps  I  did  wrong; 
but  I  could  n't  help  it.  I  passed  her  through  my  alem- 
bic and  what  did  I  find  ?  this  thought,  crouching  at  the 
bottom  of  her  heart,  *  I  am  not  so  ugly  as  they  think 
me  ; '  and  if  a  man  were  to  work  upon  that  thought  he 
could  bring  her  to  the  edge  of  the  ab}Tss,  pious  as 
she  is." 

"  And  have  you  studied  Modeste?" 

"  I  thought  I  told  you,"  replied  Butscha,  "  that  my 
life  belongs  to  her,  just  as  France  belongs  to  the  king. 
Do  you  now  understand  what  you  called  m}T  spying 
in  Paris?  No  one  but  me  really  knows  what  nobility, 
what  pride,  what  devotion,  what  mysterious  grace,  what 
unwearying  kindness,  what  true  religion,  ga}-ety,  wit, 
delicacy,  knowledge,  and  courtesy  there  are  in  the  soul 
and  in  the  heart  of  that  adorable  creature ! " 

Butscha  drew  out  his  handkerchief  and  wiped  his 
e}'es,  and  La  Briere  pressed  his  hand  for  a  long  time. 

M  I  live  in  the  sunbeam  of  her  existence;  it  comes 
from  her,  it  is  absorbed  in  me ;  that  is  how  we  are 
united,  —  as  nature  is  to  God,  by  the  Light  and  by 
the  Word.  Adieu,  monsieur ;  never  in  my  life  have  I 
talked  in  this  way ;  but  seeing  you  beneath  her  win- 
dows, I  felt  in  my  heart  that  you  loved  her  as  I  love 
her." 

Without  waiting  for  an  answer  Butscha  quitted  the 
poor  lover,  into  whose  heart  his  words  had  put  an  inex- 
pressible balm.  Ernest  resolved  to  make  a  friend  of 
him,  not  suspecting  that  the  chief  object  of  the  clerk's 
loquachVy  was  to  gain  communication  with  some  one 
connected  with  Canalis.     Ernest  was  rocked  to  sleep 


Modeste   Mignon.  237 

that  night  by  the  ebb  and  flow  of  thoughts  and  resolu- 
tions and  plans  for  his  future  conduct,  whereas  Canalis 
slept  the  sleep  of  the  conqueror,  which  is  the  sweetest 
of  slumbers  after  that  of  the  just. 

At  breakfast  next  morning,  the  friends  agreed  to 
spend  the  evening  of  the  following  day  at  the  Chalet 
and  initiate  themselves  into  the  delights  of  provincial 
whist.  To  get  rid  of  the  day  they  ordered  their  horses, 
purchased  by  Germain  at  a  large  price,  and  started  on 
a  voyage  of  discovery  round  the  county,  which  was 
quite  as  unknown  to  them  as  China ;  for  the  most  for- 
eign thing  to  Frenchmen  in  France  is  France  itself. 

By  dint  of  reflecting  on  his  position  as  an  unfortunate 
and  despised  lover,  Ernest  went  through  something  of 
the  same  process  as  Modeste' s  first  letter  had  forced 
upon  him.  Though  sorrow  is  said  to  develop  virtue, 
it  only  develops  it  in  virtuous  persons ;  that  cleaning- 
out  of  the  conscience  takes  place  only  in  persons  who  are 
by  nature  clean.  La  Briere  vowed  to  endure  his  suffer- 
ings in  Spartan  silence,  to  act  worthily,,  and  give  way 
to  no  baseness ;  while  Canalis,  fascinated  by  the  enor- 
mous dot,  was  telling  himself  to  take  every  means  of 
captivating  the  heiress.  Selfishness  and  devotion,  the 
key-notes  of  the  two  characters,  therefore  took,  by  the 
action  of  a  moral  law  which  is  often  veiy  odd  in  its 
effects,  certain  measures  that  were  contrary  to  their  re- 
1  spective  natures.  The  selfish  man  put  on  self-abnega- 
tion ;  the  man  who  thought  chiefly  of  others  took  refuge 
on  the  Aventinus  of  pride.  That  phenomenon  is  often 
seen  in  political  life.  Men  frequently  turn  their  char- 
acters wrong  side  out,  and  it  sometimes  happens  that 
the  public  is  unable  to  tell  which  is  the  right  side. 


238  Modeste   Mignon. 

After  dinner  the  two  friends  heard  of  the  arrival  of 
the  grand  equerry,  who  was  presented  at  the  Chalet  the 
same  evening  b}'  Latournelle.  Mademoiselle  d'Herou- 
ville  had  contrive  to  wound  that  worthy  man  by  send- 
ing a  footman  to  tell  him  to  come  to  her,  instead  of 
sending  her  nephew  in  person  ;  thus  depriving  the  no- 
tary of  a  distinguished  visit  he  would  certainly  have 
talked  of  for  the  rest  of  his  natural  life.  So  Latournelle 
curtly  informed  the  grand  equerry,  when  he  proposed  to 
drive  him  to  the  Chalet,  that  he  was  engaged  to  take 
Madame  Latournelle.  Guessing  from  the  little  man's 
sulky  manner  that  there  was  some  blunder  to  repair, 
the  duke  said  graciously :  — 

"Then  I  shall  have  the  pleasure,  if  you  will  allow 
me,  of  taking  Madame  Latournelle  also." 

Disregarding  Mademoiselle  d'Herouville's  haughty 
shrug,  the  duke  left  the  room  with  the  notary.  Madame 
Latournelle,  half-crazed  with  joy  at  seeing  the  gorgeous 
carriage  at  her  door,  with  footmen  in  royal  livery  letting 
down  the  steps,  was  too  agitated  on  hearing  that  the 
grand  equerry  had  called  for  her,  to  find  her  gloves,  her 
parasol,  her  absurdity,  or  her  usual  air  of  pompous 
dignity.  Once  in  the  carriage,  however,  and  while 
expressing  confused  thanks  and  civilities  to  the  little 
duke,  she  suddenly  exclaimed,  from  a  thought  in  her 
kind  heart,  — 

"  But  Butscha,  where  is  he?  " 

"  Let  us  take  Butscha,"  said  the  duke,  smiling. 

When  the  people  on  the  quays,  attracted  in  groups 
by  the  splendor  of  the  royal  equipage,  saw  the  funny 
spectacle,  the  three  little  men  with  the  spare  gigantic 
woman,  they  looked  at  one  another  and  laughed. 


Modeste   Mignon.  239 

"  If  you  melt  all  three  together,  they  might  make 
one  man  fit  to  mate  with  that  big  cod-fish,"  said  a 
sailor  from  Bordeaux. 

"  Is  there  an}-  other  thing  you  would  like  to  take  with 
.you,  madame?"  asked  the  duke,  jestingly,  while  the 
footman  waited  his  orders. 

"  No,  monseigneur,"  she  replied,  turning  scarlet  and 
looking  at  her  husband  as  much  as  to  say,  "  What  did 
I  do  wrong  ?  " 

"  Monsieur  le  due  honors  me  by  considering  that 
I  am  a  thing,"  said  Butscha ;  "  a  poor  clerk  is  usually 
thought  to  be  a  nonentity." 

Though  this  was  said  with  a  laugh,  the  duke  colored 
and  did  not  answer.  Great  people  are  to  blame  for 
joking  with  their  social  inferiors.  Jesting  is  a  game, 
and  games  presuppose  equality ;  it  is  to  obviate  any 
inconvenient  results  of  this  temporary  equality  that 
players  have  the  right,  after  the  game  is  over,  not  to 
recognize  each  other. 

The  visit  of  the  grand  equerry  had  the  ostensible 
excuse  of  an  important  piece  of  business ;  namely,  the 
retrieval  of  an  immense  tract  of  waste  land  left  by  the 
sea  between  the  mouths  of  the  two  rivers,  which  tract 
had  just  been  adjudged  by  the  Council  of  State  to  the 
house  of  Herouville.  The  matter  was  nothing  less 
than  putting  flood-gates  with  double  bridges,  draining 
three  or  four  hundred  acres,  cutting  canals,  and  laying 
out  roadways.  When  the  duke  had  explained  the  con- 
dition of  the  land,  Charles  Mignon  remarked  that  time 
must  be  allowed  for  the  soil,  which  was  still  moving,  to 
settle  and  grow  solid  in  a  natural  way. 

u  Time,  which  has  providentially  enriched  }*our  house, 


240  Modeste   Mignon. 

Monsieur  le  due,  can  alone  complete  the  work,"  he  said, 
in  conclusion.  "  It  would  be  prudent  to  let  fifty  years 
elapse  before  }'ou  reclaim  the  land." 

44  Do  not  let  that  be  your  final  word,  Monsieur  le 
comte,"  said  the  duke.  M  Come  to  Herouville  and  see 
things  for  yourself." 

Charles  Mignon  replied  that  every  capitalist  should 
take  time  to  examine  into  such  matters  with  a  cool 
head,  thus  giving  the  duke  a  pretext  for  his  visits  to 
the  Chalet.  The  sight  of  Modeste  made  a  lively  im- 
pression on  the  young  man,  and  he  asked  the  favor  of 
receiving  her  at  Herouville  with  her  father,  saying  that 
his  sister  and  his  aunt  had  heard  much  of  her,  and 
wished  to  make  her  acquaintance.  On  this  the  count 
proposed  to  present  his  daughter  to  those  ladies  him- 
self, and  invited  the  whole  party  to  dinner  on  the  day 
of  his  return  to  the  villa.  The  duke  accepted  the  invi- 
tation. The  blue  ribbon,  the  title,  and  above  all,  the 
ecstatic  glances  of  the  noble  gentleman  had  an  effect 
upon  Modeste  ;  but  she  appeared  to  great  advantage  in 
carriage,  dignity,  and  conversation.  The  duke  with- 
drew reluctantly,  carrying  with  him  an  invitation  to 
visit  the  Chalet  ever}7  evening,  —  an  invitation  based  on 
the  impossibility  of  a  courtier  of  Charles  X.  existing 
for  a  single  evening  without  his  rubber. 

The  following  evening,  therefore,  Modeste  was  to 
see  all  three  of  her  lovers.  No  matter  what  }oung 
girls  may  say,  and  though  the  logic  of  the  heart  may 
lead  them  to  sacrifice  everything  to  preference,  it  is 
extremely  flattering  to  their  self-love  to  see  a  number 
of  rival  adorers  around  them,  —  distinguished  or  cele- 
brated men,  or  men  of  ancient  lineage,  —  all  endeavor- 


Modeste   Mignon.  241 

ing  to  shine  and  to  please.  Suffer  as  Modeste  may  in 
general  estimation,  it  must  be  told  she  subsequently 
admitted  that  the  sentiments  expressed  in  her  letters 
paled  before  the  pleasure  of  setting  three  such  different 
minds  at  war  with  one  another,  — three  men  who,  taken 
separately,  would  each  have  done  honor  to  the  most 
exacting  family.  Yet  this  luxury  of  self-love  was 
checked  by  a  misanthropical  spitefulness,  resulting 
from  the  terrible  wound  she  had  received,  —  although 
by  this  time  she  was  beginning  to  think  of  that  wound 
as  a  disappointment  only.  So  when  her  father  said  to 
her,  laughing,  "Well,  Modeste,  do  you  want  to  be  a 
duchess  ?"  she  answered,  with  a  mocking  curtse3r, — 

"  Sorrows  have  made  me  philosophical." 

"Do  you  mean  to  be  only  a  baroness?"  asked 
Butscha. 

14  Or  a  viscountess?"  said  her  father. 

"  How  could  that  be?  "  she  asked  quickly. 

"If  you  accept  Monsieur  de  La  Briere,  he  has 
enough  merit  and  influence  to  obtain  permission  from 
the  king  to  bear  my  titles  and  arms." 

"  Oh,  if  it  comes  to  disguising  himself,  he  will  not 
make  an}7  difficulty,"  said  Modeste,  scornfully. 

Butscha  did  not  understand  this  epigram,  whose 
meaning  could  only  be  guessed  by  Monsieur  and  Ma- 
dame Mignon  and  Dumay. 

11  When  it  is  a  question  of  marriage,  all  men  disguise 
themselves,"  remarked  Madame  Latournelle,  "and 
women  set  them  the  example.  I've  heard  it  said  ever 
since  I  came  into  the  world  that  •  Monsieur  this  or 
Mademoiselle  that  has  made  a  good  marriage/  —  mean- 
ing that  the  other  side  had  made  a  bad  one." 

16 


242  Modeste   Mignon. 

''Marriage/'  said  Butscha,  "  is  like  a  lawsuit; 
there  's  always  one  side  discontented.  If  one  dupes 
the  other,  certainly  half  the  husbands  in  the  world  are 
playing  a  county  at  the  expense  of  the  other  half." 

4 'From  which  you  conclude,  Sieur  Butscha ?"  in- 
quired Modeste. 

"To  pay  the  utmost  attention  to  the  manoeuvres  of 
the  enemy,"  answered  the  clerk. 

"What  did  I  tell  you,  my  darling?"  said  Charles 
Mignon,  alluding  to  their  conversation  on  the  seashore. 

"  Men  play  as  many  parts  to  get  married  as  mothers 
make  their  daughters  pla}T  to  get  rid  of  them,"  said 
Latournelle. 

u  Then  you  approve  of  stratagems?  "  said  Modeste. 

"  On  both  sides,"  cried  Gohenheim,  "  and  that  brings 
it  even." 

This  conversation  was  carried  on  by  fits  and  starts, 
as  they  say,  in  the  intervals  of  cutting  and  dealing  the 
cards ;  and  it  soon  turned  chiefly  on  the  merits  of  the 
Due  d'Herouville,  who  was  thought  ver}T  good-looking 
by  little  Latournelle,  little  Dumay,  and  little  Butscha. 
Without  the  foregoing  discussion  on  the  lawfulness  of 
matrimonial  tricks,  the  reader  might  possibly  find 
the  forthcoming  account  of  the  evening  so  impatiently 
awaited  by  Butscha,  somewhat  too  long. 

Desplein,  the  famous  surgeon,  arrived  the  next  morn- 
ing, and  stayed  only  long  enough  to  send  to  Havre  for 
fresh  horses  and  have  them  put-to,  which  took  about 
an  hour.  After  examining  Madame  Mignon's  eyes, 
he  decided  that  she  could  recover  her  sight,  and  fixed 
a  suitable  time,  a  month  later,  to  perform  the  opera- 
tion.    This  important  consultation  took   place  before 


Modeste   Mignon.  243 

the  assembled  members  of  the  Chalet,  who  stood  trem- 
bling and  expectant  to  hear  the  verdict  of  the  prince  of 
science.  That  illustrious  member  of  the  Academy  of 
Sciences  put  about  a  dozen  brief  questions  to  the  blind 
woman  as  he  examined  her  eyes  in  the  strong  light 
from  a  window.  Modeste  was  amazed  at  the  value 
which  a  man  so  celebrated  attached  to  time,  when  she 
saw  the  travelling-carriage  piled  with  books  which  the 
great  surgeon  proposed  to  read  during  the  journey ; 
for  he  had  left  Paris  the  evening  before,  and  had 
spent  the  night  in  sleeping  and  travelling.  The  ra- 
pidity and  clearness  of  Desplein's  judgment  on  each 
answer  made  by  Madame  Mignon,  his  succinct  tone, 
his  decisive  manner,  gave  Modeste  her  first  real  idea  of 
a  man  of  genius.  She  perceived  the  enormous  differ- 
ence between  a  second-rate  man,  like  Canalis,  and  Des- 
plein,  who  was  even  more  than  a  superior  man.  A  man 
of  genius  finds  in  the  consciousness  of  his  talent  and  in 
the  solidity-  of  his  fame  an  arena  of  his  own,  where  his 
legitimate  pride  can  expand  and  exercise  itself  without 
interfering  with  others.  Moreover,  his  perpetual  struggle 
with  men  and  things  leave  him  no  time  for  the  coxcombry 
of  fashionable  genius,  which  makes  haste  to  gather  in 
the  harvests  of  a  fugitive  season,  and  whose  vanity  and 
self-love  are  as  petty  and  exacting  as  a  custom-house 
which  levies  tithes  on  all  that  comes  in  its  wa}\ 

Modeste  was  the  more  enchanted  b\T  this  great  prac- 
tical genius,  because  he  was  evidently  charmed  with 
4  the  exquisite  beaut}'  of  Modeste,  —  he,  through  whose 
hands  so  man}'  women  passed,  and  who  had  long  since 
examined  the  sex,  as  it  were,  with  magnifier  and 
scalpel. 


244  Modeste   Mignon. 


"It  would  be  a  sad  pity,"  he  said,  with  an  air  of 
gallantry  which  he  occasionally  put  on,  and  which  con- 
trasted with  his  assumed  brusqueness,  "  if  a  mother  were 
deprived  of  the  sight  of  so  charming  a  daughter." 

Modeste  insisted  on  serving  the  simple  breakfast 
which  was  all  the  great  surgeon  would  accept.  She 
accompanied  her  father  and  Dumay  to  the  carriage 
stationed  at  the  garden-gate,  and  said  to  Desplein  at 
parting,  her  eyes  shining  with  hope,  — 

"  And  will  my  dear  mamma  really  see  me?" 

"  Yes,  nry  little  sprite,  I  '11  promise  you  that,"  he 
answered,  smiling;  "and  I  am  incapable  of  deceiving 
you,  for  I,  too,  have  a  daughter." 

The  horses  started  and  carried  him  off  as  he  uttered 
the  last  words  with  unexpected  grace  and  feeling. 
Nothing  is  more  charming  than  the  peculiar  unex- 
pectedness of  persons  of  talent. 


Modeste   Mignon.  245 


CHAPTER  XX. 

THE   POET   DOES   HIS   EXERCISES. 

This  visit  of  the  great  surgeon  was  the  event  of  the 
day,  and  it  left  a  luminous  trace  in  Modeste's  soul. 
The  young  enthusiast  ardently  admired  the  man  whose 
life  belonged  to  others,  and  in  whom  the  habit  of 
studying  physical  suffering  had  destroyed  the  mani- 
festations of  egoism.  That  evening,  when  Gobenheim, 
the  Latournelles,  and  Butscha,  Canalis,  Ernest,  and  the 
Due  d'Herouville  were  gathered  in  the  salon,  they  all 
congratulated  the  Mignon  family  on  the  hopes  which 
Desplein  encouraged.  The  conversation,  in  which  the 
Modeste  of  her  letters  was  once  more  in  the  ascendant, 
turned  naturally  on  the  man  whose  genius,  unfortu- 
nately for  his  fame,  was  appreciable  only  by  the  fa- 
culty and  men  of  science.  Gobenheim  contributed  a 
phrase  which  is  the  sacred  chrism  of  genius  as  in- 
terpreted in  these  days  by  public  economists  and 
bankers,  — 

M  He  makes  a  mint  of  mone}\" 

11  They  say  he  is  very  grasping,"  added  Canalis. 

The  praises  which  Modeste  showered  on  Desplein 
had  annoyed  the  poet.  Vanity  acts  like  a  woman,  — 
they  both  think  they  are  defrauded  when  love  or  praise 
is  bestowed  on  others.  Voltaire  was  jealous  of  the  wit 
of  a  roue  whom  Paris  admired  for  two  davs ;  and  even 


246  Modeste   Mignon. 

a  duchess  takes  offence  at  a  look  bestowed  upon  her 
maid.  The  avarice  excited  by  these  two  sentiments  is 
such  that  a  fraction  of  them  given  to  the  poor  is 
thought  robbery. 

"  Do  yon  think,  monsieur,"  said  Modeste,  smiling, 
"  that  we  should  judge  genius  by  ordinarj7  standards?  " 

"  Perhaps  we  ought  first  of  all  to  define  the  man  of 
genius,"  replied  Canalis.  "  One  of  the  conditions  of 
genius  is  invention,  —  invention  of  a  form,  a  S3'stem,  a 
force.  Napoleon  was  an  inventor,  apart  from  his  other 
conditions  of  genius.  He  invented  his  method  of  mak- 
ing war.  Walter  Scott  is  an  inventor,  Linnaeus  is  an 
inventor,  Geoffre}'  Saint-Hilaire  and  Cuvier  are  invent- 
ors. Such  men  are  men  of  genius  of  the  first  rank. 
They  renew,  increase,  or  modify  both  science  and  art. 
But  Desplein  is  merely  a  man  whose  vast  talent  consists 
in  properly  applying  laws  already  known  ;  in  observing, 
by  means  of  a  natural  gift,  the  limits  laid  down  for 
each  temperament,  and  the  time  appointed  by  Nature 
for  an  operation.  He  has  not  founded,  like  Hippocrates, 
the  science  itself.  He  has  invented  no  system,  as  did 
Galen,  Broussais,  and  Rasori.  He  is  merely  an  execu- 
tive genius,  like  Moscheles  on  the  piano,  Paganini  on 
the  violin,  or  Farinelli  on  his  own  larynx,  — men  who 
have  developed  enormous  faculties,  but  who  have  not 
created  music.  You  must  permit  me  to  discriminate 
between  Beethoven  and  la  Catalani :  to  one  belongs  the 
immortal  crown  of  genius  and  of  martyrdom,  to  the 
other  innumerable  five-franc  pieces  ;  one  we  can  pay  in 
coin,  but  the  world  remains  throughout  all  time  a  debtor 
to  the  oiher.  Each  da}r  increases  our  debt  to  Moliere, 
but  Baron's  comedies  have  been  overpaid." 


Modeste   Mignon.  247 

"  I  think  you  make  the  prerogative  of  ideas  too  ex- 
clusive," said  Ernest  de  La  Briere,  in  a  quiet  and 
melodious  voice,  which  formed  a  sudden  contrast  to  the 
peremptory  tones  of  the  poet,  whose  flexible  organ  had 
abandoned  its  caressing  notes  for  the  strident  and 
magisterial  voice  of  the  rostrum.  M  Genius  must  be 
estimated  according  to  its  utility  ;  and  Parmehtier,  who 
brought  potatoes  into  general  use,  Jacquart,  the  in- 
ventor of  silk  looms ;  Papin,  who  first  discovered  the 
elastic  quality  of  steam,  are  men  of  genius,  to  whom 
statues  will  some  day  be  erected.  They  have  changed, 
or  they  will  change  in  a  certain  sense,  the  face  of  the 
State.  It  is  in  that  sense  that  Desplein  will  alwa}'s  be 
considered  a  man  of  genius  by  thinkers ;  they  see  him 
attended  by  a  generation  of  sufferers  whose  pains  are 
stilled  by  his  hand." 

That  Ernest  should  give  utterance  to  this  opinion 
was  enough  to  make  Modeste  oppose  it. 

uIf  that  be  so,  monsieur,"  she  said,  "  then  the  man 
who  could  discover  a  way  to  mow  wheat  without  in- 
juring the  straw,  by  a  machine  that  could  do  the  work 
of  ten  men,  would  be  a  man  of  genius. " 

"  Yes,  my  daughter,"  said  Madame  Mignon;  "and 
the  poor  would  bless  him  for  cheaper  bread,  —  he  that 
is  blessed  by  the  poor  is  blessed  of  God." 

4 'That  is  putting  utility- abovo  art,"  said  Modeste, 
shaking  her  head. 

"Without  utility  what  would  become  of  art?"  said 
Charles  Mignon.  "  What  would  it  rest  on?  what  would 
it  live  on?  Where  would  you  lodge,  and  how  would 
yon  pay  the  poet?" 

"  Oh !  my  dear  papa,  such  opinions  are  fearfully  flat 


248  Modeste    Mignon. 

and  antediluvian  !  I  am  not  surprised  that  Gobenheim 
and  Monsieur  de  La  Briere,  who  are  interested  in  the 
solution  of  social  problems  should  think  so ;  but  you, 
whose  life  has  been  the  most  useless  poetiy  of  the 
century,  —  useless  because  the  blood  you  shed  all  over 
Europe,  and  the  horrible  sufferings  exacted  b}T  your  co- 
lossus, did  not  prevent  France  from  losing  ten  depart- 
ments acquired  under  the  Revolution,  —  how  can  you 
give  in  to  such  excessively  pig-tail  notions,  as  the  ideal- 
ists say?     It  is  plain  you  've  just  come  from  China." 

The  impertinence  of  Modeste's  speech  was  height- 
ened by  a  little  air  of  contemptuous  disdain  which 
she  purposely  put  on,  and  which  fairly  astounded 
Madame  Mignon,  Madame  Latournelle,  and  Dumay. 
As  for  Madame  Latournelle,  she  opened  her  eyes  so 
wide  she  no  longer  saw  anything.  Butscha,  whose  alert 
attention  was  comparable  to  that  of  a  spy,  looked  at 
Monsieur  Mignon,  expecting  to  see  him  flush  with 
sudden  and  violent  indignation. 

"  A  little  more,  young  lady,  and  you. will  be  wanting 
in  respect  for  your  father,"  said  the  colonel,  smiling, 
and  noticing  Butscha's  look.  u  See  what  it  is  to  spoil 
one's  children !  " 

"  I  am  your  only  child,"  she  said  saucily. 

u  Child,  indeed,"  remarked  the  notary,  significantly. 

"  Monsieur,"  said  Modeste,  turning  upon  him,  "  my 
father  is  delighted  to  have  me  for  his  governess ;  he 
gave  me  life  and  I  give  him  knowledge ;  he  will  soon 
owe  me  something." 

"There  seems  occasion  for  it,"  said  Madame  Mignon. 

"But  mademoiselle  is  right,"  said  Canalis  rising  and 
standing  before  the  fireplace  in  one  of  the  finest  at- 


Modeste   Mignon.  249 

titudes  of  his  collection.  uGod,  in  his  providence,  has 
given  food  and  clothing  to  man,  but  he  has  not  directly 
given  him  art.  He  says  to  man :  '  To  live,  thou  must 
bow  thyself  to  earth  ;  to  think,  thou  shalt  lift  thyself  to 
Me.'  We  have  as  much  need  of  the  life  of  the  soul  as 
of  the  life  of  the  body,  —  hence,  there  are  two  utilities. 
It  is  true  we  cannot  be  shod  by  books  or  clothed  by 
poems.  An  epic  song  is  not,  if  you  take  the  utilitarian 
view,  as  useful  as  the  broth  of  a  charity  kitchen.  The 
noblest  ideas  will  not  sail  a  vessel  in  place  of  canvas. 
It  is  quite  true  that  the  cotton-gin  gives  us  calicoes  for 
thirty  sous  a  yard  less  than  we  ever  paid  before ;  but 
that  machine  and  all  other  industrial  perfections  will 
not  breathe  the  breath  of  life  into  a  people,  will  not 
tell  futurity  of  a  civilization  that  once  existed.  Art,  on 
the  contrary,  Egyptian,  Mexican,  Grecian,  Roman  art, 
with  their  masterpieces  —  now  called  useless  !  —  reveal 
the  existence  of  races  back  in  the  vague  immense  of 
time,  beyond  where  the  great  intermediary  nations, 
denuded  of  men  of  genius,  have  disappeared,  leaving 
not  a  line  nor  a  trace  behind  them !  The  works  of 
genius  are  the  summum  of  civilization,  and  presuppose 
utility.  Surely  a  pair  of  boots  are  not  as  agreeable  to 
your  eyes  as  a  fine  play  at  the  theatre ;  and  you  don't 
prefer  a  windmill  to  the  church  of  Saint-Ouen,  do  you  ?  \ 
Well  then,  nations  are  imbued  with  the  same  feelings 
as  the  individual  man,  and  the  man's  cherished  desire 
is  to  survive  himself  morally  just  as  he  propagates  him- 
self physically.  The  survival  of  a  people  is  the  work 
of  its  men  of  genius.  At  this  very  moment  France  is 
proving,  energetically,  the  truth  of  that  theory.  She 
is,  undoubtedly,  excelled  by  England  in  commerce,  in- 


250  Modeste   Mignon. 


dustry,  and  navigation,  and  yet  she  is,  I  believe,  at  the 
head  of  the  world,  —  by  reason  of  her  artists,  her  men 
of  talent,  and  the  good  taste  of  her  products.  There 
is  no  artist  and  no  superior  intellect  that  does  not  come 
to  Paris  for  a  diploma.  There  is  no  school  of  painting 
at  this  moment  but  that  of  France  ;  and  we  shall  reign 
far  longer  and  perhaps  more  securely  hy  our  books  than 
by  our  swords.  In  La  Briere's  system,  on  the  other 
hand,  all  that  is  glorious  and  lovely  must  be  suppressed, 
—  woman's  beauty,  music,  painting,  poetry.  Society 
will  not  be  overthrown,  that  is  true,  but,  I  ask  you,  who 
would  willingly  accept  such  a  life?  All  useful  things 
are  ugly  and  forbidding.  A  kitchen  is  indispensable, 
but  you  take  care  not  to  sit  there  ;  you  live  in  the  salon, 
which  you  adorn,  like  this,  with  superfluous  things.  Of 
what  use,  let  me  ask  you,  are  these  charming  wall-paint- 
ings, this  carved  wood- work  ?  There  is  nothing  beauti- 
ful but  that  which  seems  to  us  useless.  We  called  the 
sixteenth  century  the  Renascence  with  admirable  truth 
of  language.  That  century  was  the  dawn  of  a  new  era. 
Men  will  continue  to  speak  of  it  when  all  remembrance 
of  anterior  centuries  has  passed  away,  — their  only  merit 
being  that  they  once  existed,  like  the  million  beings  who 
count  as  the  rubbish  of  a  generation." 

"Rubbish!  yes,  that  may  be,  but  nry  rubbish  is 
dear  to  me,"  said  the  Due  d'Herouville,  laughing,  dur- 
ing the  silent  pause  which  followed  the  poet's  pompous 
oration. 

"Let  me  ask,"  said  Butscha,  attacking  Canalis,  " does 
art,  the  sphere  in  which,  according  to  3*011,  genius  is 
required  to  evolve  itself,  exist  at  all?  Is  it  not  a 
splendid  lie.  a  delusion,  of  the  social  man?     Do  I  want 


Modeste   Mignon.  251 

a  landscape  scene  of  Normandy  in  my  bedroom  when 
I  can  look  out  and  see  a  better  one  done  by  God  him- 
self? Our  dreams  make  poems  more  glorious  than 
Iliads.  For  an  insignificant  sum  of  money  I  can  find 
at  Valogne,  at  Carentan,  in  Provence,  at  Aries,  many  a 
Venus  as  beautiful  as  those  of  Titian.  The  police 
gazette  publishes  tales,  differing  somewhat  from  those 
of  Walter  Scott,  but  ending  tragically  with  blood,  not 
ink.  Happiness  and  virtue  exist  above  and  beyond 
both  art  and  genius." 

"  Bravo,  Butscha !  "  cried  Madame  Latournelle. 

"What  did  he  say?"  asked  Canalis  of  La  Briere, 
failing  to  gather  from  the  eyes  and  attitude  of  Made- 
moiselle Mignon  the  usual  signs  of  artless  admiration. 

The  contemptuous  indifference  which  Modeste  had  N 
exhibited  toward.Xa  Briere,  and  above  all,  her  -disre- 
spectful speeches  to  her  father,  so  depressed  the  young 
man  that  he  made  no  answer  to  Canalis  ;  his  eyes,  fixed 
sorrowfully  on  Modeste,  were  full  of  deep  meditation. 
The  Due  d'Herouville  took  up  Butscha's  argument  and 
reproduced  it  with  much  intelligence,  saying  finally  that 
the  ecstasies  of  Saint-Theresa  were  far  superior  to  the 
creations  of  Lord  Byron. 

"  Oh,  Monsieur  le  due,"  exclaimed  Modeste,  "  hers 
was  a  purely  personal  poetry,  whereas  the  genius  of 
Lord  Byron  and  Moliere  benefit  the  world." 

"How  do  you  square  that  opinion  with  those  of 
Monsieur  le  baron?"  cried  Charles  Mignon,  quickly. 
"Now  3Tou  are  insisting  that  genius  must  be  useful, 
and  benefit  the  world  as  though  it  were  cotton,  —  but 
perhaps  you  think  logic  as  antediluvian  as  your  poor 
old  father?" 


252     m  Modeste   Miynon. 


" 


Butscha,  La  Briere,  and  Madame  Latournelle  ex- 
changed glances  that  were  more  than  half  derisive, 
and  drove  Modeste  to  a  pitch  of  irritation  that  kept 
her  silent  for  a  moment. 

"Mademoiselle,  do  not  mind  them,"  said  Canalis, 
smiling  upon  her,  "  we  are  neither  beaten,  nor  caught 
in  a  contradiction.  Every  work  of  art,  let  it  be  in  lit- 
erature, music,  painting,  sculpture,  or  architecture,  im- 
plies a  positive  social  utility,  equal  to  that  of  all  other 
commercial  products.  Art  is  pre-eminently  commerce  ; 
presupposes  it,  in  short.  An  author  pockets  ten  thou- 
sand francs  for  his  book ;  the  making  of  books  means 
the  manufactory  of  paper,  a  foundry,  a  printing-office, 
a  bookseller,  —  in  other  words,  the  employment  of  thou- 
sands of  men.  The  execution  of  a  symphony  of  Bee- 
thoven or  an  opera  by  Rossini  requires  human  arms  and 
machinery  and  manufactures.  The  cost  of  a  monument 
is  an  almost  brutal  case  In  point.  In  short,  I  may  say 
that  the  works  of  genius  have  an  extremely  costly  basis 
and  are,  necessarily,  useful  to  the  workingman." 

Astride  of  that  theme,  Canalis  spoke  for  some  min- 
utes with  a  fine  luxury  of  metaphor,  and  much  inward 
complacency  as  to  his  phrases ;  but  it  happened  with 
him,  as  with  many  another  great  speaker,  that  he  found 
himself  at  last  at  the  point  from  which  the  conversation 
started,  and  in  full  agreement  with  La  Briere  without 
perceiving  it. 

"  I  see  with  much  pleasure,  my  dear  baron,"  said 
the  little  duke,  slyly,  "that  you  will  make  an  admirable 
constitutional  minister." 

"  Oh ! "  said  Canalis,  with  the  gesture  of  a  great 
man,  ct  what  is  the  use  of  all  these  discussions?     What 


Modeste   Mignon.  t    253 

do  they  prove?  —  the  eternal  verit}T  of  one  axiom: 
All  things  are  true,  all  things  are  false.  Moral  truths 
as  well  as  human  beings  change  their  aspect  according 
to  their  surroundings,  to  the  point  of  being  actually 
unrecognizable." 

"  Society  exists  through  settled  opinions,"  said  the 
Due  d'Herouville. 

"  What  laxity  !  "  whispered  Madame  Latournelle  to 
her  husband. 

"  He  is  a  poet,"  said  Gobenheim,  who  overheard  her. 

Canalis,  who  was  ten  leagues  above  the  heads  of  his 
audience,  and  who  may  have  been  right  in  his  last  philo- 
sophical remark,  took  the  sort  of  coldness  which  now 
overspread  the  surrounding  faces  for  a  symptom  of 
provincial  ignorance ;  but  seeing  that  Modeste  under- 
stood him,  he  was  content,  being  wholly  unaware  that 
monologue  is  particularly  disagreeable  to  country- 
folk, whose  principal  desire  it  is  to  exhibit  the  man- 
ner of  life  and  the  wit  and  wisdom  of  the  provinces 
to  Parisians. 

"  Is  it  long  since  you  have  seen  the  Duchesse  de 
Chaulieu?"  asked  the  duke,  addressing  Canalis,  as  if 
to  change  the  conversation. 

M  I  left  her  about  six  daj^s  ago." 

14  Is  she  well?  "  persisted  the  duke. 

"  Perfectly  well." 

"  Have  the  kindness  to  remember  me  to  her  when 
you  write." 

"The}'  say  she  is  charming,"  remarked  Modeste, 
addressing  the  duke. 

"  Monsieur  le  baron  can  speak  more  confidently  than 
I,"  replied  the  grand  equerry. 


254  Modeste   Mignon. 


! 


v 


v/ 


"  More  than  charming,,,  said  Canalis,  making  the 
best  of  the  duke's  perfidy ;  "  but  I  am  partial,  mademoi- 
selle ;  she  has  been  a  friend  to  me  for  the  last  ten  years  ; 
I  owe  all  that  is  good  in  me  to  her ;  she  has  saved  me 
from  the  dangers  of  the  world.  Moreover,  Monsieur  le 
Due  de  Chaulieu  launched  me  in  nry  present  career. 
Without  the  influence  of  that  family  the  king  and  the 
princesses  would  have  forgotten  a  poor  poet  like  me ; 
therefore  my  affection  for  the  duchess  must  alwaj^s  be 
full  of  gratitude." 

His  voice  quivered. 

M  We  ought  to  love  the  woman  who  has  led  you  to 
write  those  sublime  poems,  and  who  inspires  yon  with 
such  noble  feelings,"  said  Modeste,  quite  affected. 
"  Who  can  think  of  a  poet  without  a  muse  !  " 

U  He  would  be  without  a  heart,"  replied  Canalis. 
u  He  would  write  barren  verses  like  Voltaire,  who 
never  loved  any  one  but  Voltaire." 
"~~  "  I  thought  you  did  me  the  honor  to  say,  in  Paris," 
interrupted  Dumay,  "  that  you  never  felt  the  sentiments 
you  expressed." 

M  The  shoe  fits,  my  soldier,"  replied  the  poet,  smiling  ; 
"but  let  me  tell  3011  that  it  is  quite  possible  to  have  a 
great  deal  of  feeling  both  in  the  intellectual  life  and  in 
real  life.  My  good  friend  here,  La  Briere,  is  madly  in 
love,"  continued  Canalis,  with  a  fine  show  of  generosit}-, 
looking  at  Modeste.  "  I,  who  certainly  love  as  much 
as  he, — that  is,  I  think  so  unless  I  delude  myself, — 
well,  I  can  give  to  my  love  a  literary  form  in  harmony 
with  its  character.  But  I  dare  not  say,  mademoiselle/' 
he  added,  turning  to  Modeste  with  too  studied  a  grace, 
"  that  to-morrow  I  may  not  be  without  inspiration." 


Modeste   Mignon.  255 

Thus  the  poet  triumphed  over  all  obstacles.  In 
honor  of  his  love  he  rode  a-tilt  at  the  hindrances  that 
were  thrown  in  his  way,  and  Modeste  remained  won- 
der-struck at  the  Parisian  wit  that  scintillated  in  his 
declamatory  discourse,  of  which  she  had  hitherto  known 
little  or  nothing. 

"  What  an  acrobat !  "  whispered  Butscha  to'Latour- 
nelle,  after  listening  to  a  magnificent  tirade  on  the 
Catholic  religion  and  the  happiness  of  having  a  pious 
wife,  —  served  up  in  response  to  a  remark  by  Madame 
Mignon. 

Modeste's  eyes  were  blindfolded  as  it  were ;  Canalis's 
elocution  and  the  close  attention  which  she  was  prede- 
termined to  pay  to  him  prevented  her  from  seeing  that 
Butscha  was  carefully  noting  the  declamation,  the  want 
of  simplicity,  the  emphasis  that  took  the  place  of  feeling, 
and  the  curious  incoherencies  in  the  poet's  speech  which 
led  the  dwarf  to  make  his  rather  cruel  comment.  At 
certain  points  of  Canalis's  discourse,  when  Monsieur 
Mignon,  Duma}',  Butscha,  and  Latournelle  wondered 
at  the  man's  utter  want  of  logic,  Modeste  admired  his 
suppleness,  and  said  to  herself,  as  she  dragged  him  after 
her  through  the  lab}Tinth  of  fanej',  "  He  loves  me!" 
Butscha,  in  common  with  the  other  spectators  of  what 
we  must  call  a  stage  scene,  was  struck  with  the  radi- 
cal defect  of  all  egoists,  which  Canalis,  like  many 
men  accustomed  to  perorate,  allowed  to'  be  too  plainly 
seen.  Whether  he  understood  beforehand  what  the 
person  he  wras  speaking  to  meant  to  say,  whether  he 
was  not  listening,  or  whether  he  had  the  faculty  of 
listening  when  he  was  thinking  of  something  else,  it  is 
certain  that  Melchior's  face  wore  an  absent-minded  look 


256  Modeste   Mignon. 

in  conversation,  which  disconcerted  the  ideas  of  others 
and  wounded  their  vanity. 

Not  to  listen  is  not  merely  a  want  of  politeness,  it  is  a 
raark  of  disrespect.  Canalis  pushed  this  habit  too  far  ; 
for  he  often  forgot  to  answer  a  speech  which  required 
an  answer,  and  passed,  without  the  ordinary  transitions 
of  courtesy,  to  the  subject,  whatever  it  was,  that  pre- 
occupied him.  Though  such  impertinence  is  accepted 
without  protest  from  a  man  of  marked  distinction,  it 
stirs  a  leaven  of  hatred  and  vengeance  in  man}'  hearts  ; 
in  those  of  equals  it  even  goes  so  far  as  to  destroy 
friendship.  If  by  chance  Melchior  was  forced  to  listen,  he 
fell  into  another  fault ;  he  merely  lent  his  attention,  and 
never  gave  it.  Though  this  may  not  be  so  mortifying, 
it  shows  a  kind  of  semi-concession  which  is  almost  as 
unsatisfactory  to  the  bearer  and  leaves  him  dissatisfied. 
Nothing  brings  more  profit  in  the  commerce  of  society 
than  the  small  change  of  attention.  He  that  heareth  let 
him  hear,  is  not  only  a  gospel  precept,  it  is  an  excellent 
speculation;  follow  it,  and  all  will  be  forgiven  you, 
even  vice.  Canalis  took  a  great  deal  of  trouble  in  his 
anxiety  to  please  Modeste ;  but  though  he  was  com- 
pliant enough  with  her,  he  fell  back  into  his  natural  self 
with  the  others. 

Modeste,  pitiless  for  the  ten  martyrs  she  was  mak- 
ing, begged  Canalis  to  read  some  of  his  poems ;  she 
wanted,  she  said,  a  specimen  of  his  gift  for  reading,  of 
which  she  had  heard  so  much.  Canalis  took  the  vol- 
ume which  she  gave  him,  and  cooed  (for  that  is  the 
proper  word)  a  poem  which  is  generally  considered  his 
finest,  —  an  imitation  of  Moore's  "Loves  of  the  An- 
gels," entitled  Vitalis,  which  Monsieur  and  Madame 


Modeste   Mignon.  257 

Dumay,  Madame  Latournelle,  and  Gobenheim  wel- 
comed with  a  few  yawns. 

"If  you  are  a  good  whist-player,  monsieur,"  said 
Gobenheim,  flourishing  five  cards  held  like  a  fan,  "I 
must  say  I  have  never  met  a  man  as  accomplished  as 
you." 

The  remark  raised  a  laugh,  for  it  was  the  translation 
of  everybody's  thought. 

"  I  play  it  sufficiently  well  to  live  in  the  provinces 
for  the  rest  of  my  days,"  replied  Canalis.  "  That,  I 
think,  is  enough,  and  more  than  enough  literature  and 
conversation  for  whist-players,"  he  added,  throwing  the 
volume  impatiently  on  a  table. 

This  little  incident  serves  to  show  what  dangers  en- 
viron a  drawing-room  hero  when  he  steps,  like  Canalis, 
out  of  his  sphere ;  he  is  like  the  favorite  actor  of  a 
second-rate  audience,  whose  talent  is  lost  when  he 
leaves  his  own  boards  and  steps  upon  those  of  an 
upper-class  theatre. 


17 


258  Modeste   Mignon. 


CHAPTER    XXI. 

MODESTE   PLAYS   HER   PART. 

The  game  opened  with  the  baron  and  the  duke, 
Gobenheim  and  Latournelle  as  partners.  Modeste 
took  a  seat  near  the  poet,  to  Ernest's  deep  disappoint- 
ment ;  he  watched  the  face  of  the  wayward  girl,  and 
marked  the  progress  of  the  fascination  which  Canalis 
exerted  over  her.  La  Briere  had  not  the  gift  of  se- 
duction which  Melchior  possessed.  Nature  frequently 
denies  it  to  true  hearts,  who  are,  as  a  rule,  timid. 
This  gift  demands  fearlessness,  an  alacrity  of  wajs  and 
means  that  might  be  called  the  trapeze  of  the  mind  ;  a 
little  mimicry  goes  with  it ;  in  fact  there  is  always, 
morally  speaking,  something  of  the  comedian  in  a  poet. 
There  is  a  vast  difference  between  expressing  senti- 
ments we  do  not  feel,  though  we  may  imagine  all  their 
variations,  and  feigning  to  feel  them  when  bidding  for 
success  on  the  theatre  of  private  life.  And  yet,  though 
the  necessary  hypocrisy  of  a  man  of  the  world  may 
have  gangrened  a  poet,  he  ends  by  carrying  the  facul- 
ties of  his  talent  into  the  expression  of  any  required 
sentiment,  just  as  a  great  man  doomed  to  solitude  ends 
by  infusing  his  heart  into  his  mind. 

"  He  is  after  the  millions,"  thought  La  Briere,  sadly  ; 
"and  he  can  play  passion  so  well  that  Modeste  will 
believe  him." 


Modeste   Mignon.  259 

Instead  of  endeavoring  to  appear  more  amiable  and 
wittier  than  his  rival,  Ernest  imitated  the  Due  d'Herou- 
ville,  and  was  gloomy,  anxious,  and  watchful ;  but 
whereas  the  courtier  studied  the  freaks  of  the  young 
heiress,  Ernest  simply  fell  a  prey  to  the  pains  of  dark 
and  concentrated  jealousy.  He  had  not  yet  been  able 
to  obtain  a  glance  from  his  idol.  After  a  while  he  left 
the  room  with  Butscha. 

"It   is   all   over!"    he   said;    "she   is   caught   by  "~1 
him ;  I  am  more  than  disagreeable  to  her,  and,  more- 
over, she  is  right.     Canalis  is  charming  ;  there 's  intel- 
lect in  his  silence,  passion  in  his  eyes,   poetry  in  his 
rhodomon  tade  s . " 

"  Is  he  an  honest  man?"  asked  Butscha. 

"Oh,  yes,"  replied  La  Briere.  "He  is  loyal  and 
chivalrous,  and  capable  of  getting  rid,  under  Modeste's 
influence,  of  those  affectations  which  Madame  de  Chau- 
lieu  has  taught  him." 

"  You  are  a  fine  fellow,"  said  the  hunchback ;  "  but 
is  he  capable  of  loving,  —  will  he  love  her  ?  " 

"I  don't  know,"  answered  La  Briere.  "Has  she 
said  anything  about  me  ? "  he  asked  after  a  moment's 
silence. 

"Yes,"  said  Butscha,  and  he  repeated  Modeste's 
speech  about  disguises. 

Poor  Ernest  flung  himself  upon  a  bench  and  held  his 
head  in  his  hands.  He  could  not  keep  back  his  tears, 
and  he  did  not  wish  Butscha  to  see  them  ;  but  the 
dwarf  was  the  very  man  to  guess  his  emotion. 

"  What  troubles  you?"  he  asked. 

"  She  is  right !  "  cried  Ernest,  springing  up  ;  "I  am 
a  wretch." 


260  Modeste   Mignon. 

And  he  related  the  deception  into  which  Canalis  had 
led  him  when  Modes te's  first  letter  was  received,  care- 
fully pointing  out  to  Butscha  that  he  had  wished  to 
undeceive  the  young  girl  before  she  herself  took  off'  the 
mask,  and  apostrophizing,  in  rather  juvenile  fashion, 
his  luckless  destiny.  Butscha  sympathetically  under- 
stood the  love  in  the  flavor  and  vigor  of  his  simple 
language,  and  in  his  deep  and  genuine  anxiety. 

"  But  why  don't  you  show  yourself  to  Mademoiselle 
Modeste  for  what  you  are?  "  he  said  ;  "  why  do  you  let 
your  rival  do  his  exercises  ?  " 

"  Have  }rou  never  felt  your  throat  tighten  when  you 
wished  to  speak  to  her  ?  "  cried  La  Briere ;  "is  there 
never  a  strange  feeling  in  the  roots  of  your  hair  and  on 
the  surface  of  your  skin  when  she  looks  at  you,  —  even 
if  she  is  thinking  of  something  else  ?  " 

"  But  you  had  sufficient  judgment  to  show  displeas- 
ure when  she  as  good  as  told  her  excellent  father  that 
he  was  a  dolt." 

"  Monsieur,  I  love  her  too  well  not  to  have  felt  a 
knife  in  my  heart  when  I  heard  her  contradicting  her 
own  perfections." 

"Canalis  supported  her." 

"  If  she  had  more  self-love  than  heart  there  would  be 
nothing  for  a  man  to  regret  in  losing  her,"  answered 
La  Briere. 

At  this  moment  Modeste,  followed  by  Canalis,  who 
had  lost  the  rubber,  came  out  with  her  father  and 
Madame  Dumay  to  breathe  the  fresh  air  of  the  starry 
night.  While  his  daughter  walked  about  with  the  poet, 
Charles  Mignon  left  her  and  came  up  to  La  Briere. 

"Your  friend,  monsieur,  ought  to  have  been  a  law- 


Modeste    Mignon.  261 

yer,"  he  said,  smiling  and  looking  attentively  at  the 
young  man. 

u  You  must  not  judge  a  poet  as  you  would  an  ordi- 
nary man,  —  as  you  would  me,  for  example,  Monsieur 
le  comte,"  said  La  Briere.  "A  poet  has  a  mission. 
He  is  obliged  by  his  nature  to  see  the  poetry  of  ques- 
tions, just  as  he  expresses  that  of  things.  When  3'ou 
think  him  inconsistent  with  himself  he  is  really  faithful 
to  his  vocation.  He  is  a  painter  copying  with  equal 
truth  a  Madonna  and  a  courtesan.  Moliere  is  as  true 
to  nature  in  his  old  men  as  in  his  young  ones,  and 
Moliere's  judgment  was  assuredly  a  sound  and  healthy 
one.  These  witty  paradoxes  might  be  dangerous  for 
second-rate  minds,  but  they  have  no  real  influence  on 
the  character  of  great  men." 

Charles  Mignon  pressed  La  Brieve's  hand. 

"That  adaptability,  however,  leads  a  man  to  excuse 
himself  in  his  own  eyes  for  actions  that  are  diametri- 
cail}7  opposed  to  each  other  ;  above  all,  in  politics." 

"  Ah,  mademoiselle,"  Canalis  was  at  this  moment 
saying,  in  a  caressing  voice,  replying  to  a  roguish 
remark  of  Modeste,  "do  not  think  that  a  multiplicity 
of  emotions  can  in  any  way  lessen  the  strength  of 
feelings.  Poets,  even  more  than  other  men,  must  needs 
love  with  constancy  and  faith.  You  must  not  be  jeal- 
ous of  what  is  called  the  Muse.  Happy  is  the  wife  of 
a  man  whose  days  are  occupied.  If  you  heard  the 
complaints  of  women  who  have  to  endure  the  burden  of 
an  idle  husband,  either  a  man  without  duties,  or  one  so 
rich  as  to  have  nothing  to  do,  30U  would  know  that  the 
highest  happiness  of  a  Parisian  wife  is  freedom,  —  the 
right  to  rule  in  her  own  home.     Now  we  writers  and 


262  Modeste   Mignon. 

men  of  functions  and  occupations,  we  leave  the  sceptre 
to  our  wives ;  we  cannot  descend  to  the  tyranny  of 
little  minds  ;  we  have  something  better  to  do.  If  I 
ever  marry,  —  which  I  assure  you  is  a  catastrophe  very 
remote  at  the  present  moment,  —  I  should  wish  my 
wife  to  enjoy  the  same  moral  freedom  that  a  mistress 
enjo}  s,  and  which  is  perhaps  the  real  source  of  her 
attraction." 

Canalis  talked  on,  displajing  the  warmth  of  his  fancy 
and  all  his  graces,  for  Modeste's  benefit,  as  he  spoke  of 
love,  marriage,  and  the  adoration  of  women,  until  Mon- 
sieur Mignon,  who  had  rejoined  them,  seized  the  oppor- 
tunity of  a  slight  pause  to  take  his  daughter's  arm  and 
lead  her  up  to  Ernest  de  La  Briere,  whom  he  had  been 
advising  to  seek  an  open  explanation  with  her. 

4  i  Mademoiselle,"  said  Ernest,  in  a  voice  that  was 
scarcely  his  own,  "it  is  impossible  for  me  to  remain 
any  longer  under  the  weight  of  your  displeasure.  I 
do  not  defend  myself;  I  do  not  seek  to  justify  my 
conduct ;  I  desire  only  to  make  30U  see  that  before 
reading  your  most  flattering  letter,  addressed  to  the 
individual  and  no  longer  to  the  poet,  —  the  last  which 
you  sent  to  me,  —  I  wished,  and  I  told  you  in  my  note 
written  at  Havre  that  I  wished,  to  correct  the  error 
under  which  you  were  acting.  All  the  feelings  that 
I  have  had  the  happiness  to  express  to  you  are  sincere. 
A  hope  dawned  on  me  in  Paris  when  your  father  told 
me  he  was  comparatively  poor,  —  but  now  that  all  is 
lost,  now  that  nothing  is  left  for  me  but  endless  regrets, 
why  should  I  stay  here  where  all  is  torture?  Let  me 
carry  away  with  me  one  smile  to  live  forever  in  m}- 
heart." 


Modeste   Mignon.  263 

u  Monsieur,"  answered  Modeste,  who  seemed  cold  and 
absent-minded,  "  I  am  not  the  mistress  of  this  house  ; 
but  I  certainly  should  deeply  regret  to  retain  any  one 
where  he  finds  neither  pleasure  nor  happiness." 

She  left  La  Briere  and  took  Madame  Dumay's  arm 
to  re-enter  the  house.  A  few  moments  later  all  the 
actors  in  this  domestic  scene  reassembled  in  the  salon, 
and  were  a  good  deal  surprised  to  see  Modeste  sitting 
beside  the  Due  d'  Herouville  and  coquetting  with  him 
like  an  accomplished  Parisian  woman.  She  watched 
his  play,  gave  him  the  advice  he  wanted,  and  found 
occasion  to  say  flattering  things  by  ranking  the  merits 
of  noble  birth  with  those  of  genius  and  beauty.  Cana- 
lis  thought  he  knew  the  reason  of  this  change  ;  he  had 
tried  to  pique  Modeste  by  calling  marriage  a  catastro- 
phe, and  showing  that  he  was  aloof  from  it ;  but  like 
others  who  play  with  fire,  he  had  burned  his  fingers. 
Modeste's  pride  and  her  present  disdain  frightened 
him,  and  he  endeavored  to  recover  his  ground,  exhib- 
iting a  jealousy  which  was  all  the  more  visible  because 
it  was  artificial.  Modeste,  implacable  as  an  angel, 
tasted  the  ^sweets  of  power,  and,  naturally  enough, 
abused  it.  The  Due  d'Herouville  had  never  known 
such  a  happy  evening ;  a  woman  smiled  on  him !  At 
eleven  o'clock,  an  unheard-of  hour  at  the  Chalet,  the 
three  suitors  took  their  leave,  —  the  duke  thinking  Mo- 
deste charming,  Canalis  believing  her  excessively  coquet- 
tish, and  La  Briere  heart-broken  by  her  cruelty. 

For  eight  days  the  heiress  continued  to  be  to  her 
three  lovers  very  much  what  she  had  been  during  that 
evening ;  so  that  the  poet  appeared  to  carry  the  day 
against  his  rivals,  in  spite  of  certain  freaks  and  caprices 


264  Modeste   Mignon. 

which  from  time  to  time  gave  the  Due  d'Herouville  a  lit- 
tle hope.  The  disrespect  she  showed  to  her  father,  and 
the  great  liberties  she  took  with  him ;  her  impatience 
with  her  blind  mother,  to  whom  she  seemed  to  grudge 
the  little  services  which  had  once  been  the  delight 
of  her  filial  piety,  —  seemed  the  result  of  a  capricious 
nature  and  a  heedless  gayety  indulged  from  childhood. 
When  Modeste  went  too  far,  she  turned  round  and 
openly  took  herself  to  task,  ascribing  her  impertinence 
and  levity  to  a  spirit  of  independence.  She  acknowl- 
edged to  the  duke  and  Canalis  her  distaste  for  obedi- 
ence, and  professed  to  regard  it  as  an  obstacle  to  her 
marriage  ;  thus  investigating  the  nature  of  her  suitors, 
after  the  manner  of  those  who  dig  into  the  earth  in 
search  of  metals,  coal,  tufa,  or  water. 

"  I  shall  never,"  she  said,  the  evening  before  the  day 
on  which  the  family  were  to  move  into  the  villa,  "  find 
a  husband  who  will  put  up  with  my  caprices  as  my 
father  does ;  his  kindness  never  flags.  I  am  sure  no 
one  will  ever  be  as  indulgent  to  me  as  my  precious 
mother." 

"They  know  that  yoxx  love  them,  mademoiselle," 
said  La  Briere. 

"You  may  be  very  sure,  mademoiselle,  that  your 
husband  will  know  the  full  value  of  his  treasure,"  added 
the  duke. 

"You  have  spirit  and  resolution  enough  to  discipline 
a  husband,"  cried  Canalis,  laughing. 

Modeste  smiled  as  Henri  IV.  must  have  smiled  after 
drawing  out  the  characters  of  his  three  principal  minis- 
ters, for  the  benefit  of  a  foreign  ambassador,  by  means 
of  three  answers  to  an  insidious  question. 


Modeste   Mignon.  265 

On  the  day  of  the  dinner,  Modeste,  led  away  by  the 
preference  she  bestowed  on  Canalis,  walked  alone  with 
him  up  and  down  the  gravelled  space  which  lay  between 
the  house  and  the  lawn  with  its  flower-beds.  From  the 
gestures  of  the  poet,  and  the  air  and  manner  of  the 
young  heiress,  it  was  easy  to  see  that  she  was  listening 
favorably  to  him.  The  two  demoiselles  d'Herouville 
hastened  to  interrupt  the  scandalous  tete-a-tete ;  and 
with  the  natural  cleverness  of  women  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, they  turned  the  conversation  on  the  court, 
and  the  distinction  of  an  appointment  under  the  crown, 
—  pointing  out  the  difference  that  existed  between  ap- 
pointments in  the  household  of  the  king  and  those  of 
the  crown.  They  tried  to  intoxicate  Modeste's  mind 
by  appealing  to  her  pride,  and  describing  one  of  the 
highest  stations  to  which  a  woman  could  aspire. 

"  To  have  a  duke  for  a  son,"  said  the  elder  lady,  u  is 
an  actual  advantage.  The  title  is  a  fortune  that  we  se- 
cure to  our  children  without  the  possibility  of  loss." 

"  How  is  it,  then,"  said  Canalis,  displeased  at  his  tete- 
a-tete  being  thus  broken  in  upon,  "  that  Monsieur  le 
due  has  had  so  little  success  in  a  matter  where  his  title 
would  seem  to  be  of  special  service  to  him?" 

The  two  ladies  cast  a  look  at  Canalis  as  full  of  venom 
as  the  tooth  of  a  snake,  and  they  were  so  disconcerted 
by  Modeste's  amused  smile  that  they  were  actually  un- 
able to  reply. 

"Monsieur  le  due  has  never  blamed  you,"  she  said 
to  Canalis,  u  for  the  humility  with  which  you  bear  your 
fame  ;  why  should  you  attack  him  for  his  modesty  ?  " 

"  Besides,  we  have  never  }'et  met  a  woman  worthy 
of  m}T  nephew's  rank,"  said  Mademoiselle  d'Herouville. 


266  Mbdeste   Mignon. 

"  Some  had  only  the  wealth  of  the  position;  others, 
without  fortune,  had  the  wit  and  birth.  I  must  ad- 
mit that  we  have  done  well  to  wait  till  God  granted 
us  an  opportunity  to  meet  one  in  whom  we  find  the 
noble  blood,  the  mind,  and  fortune  of  a  Duchesse 
d'Herouville." 

M  My  dear  Modeste,"  said  Helene  d'Herouville,  lead- 
ing her  new  friend  apart,  '  \  there  are  a  thousand  barons 
in  the  kingdom,  just  as  there  are  a  hundred  poets  in 
Paris,  who  are  worth  as  much  as  he  ;  he  is  so  little  of  a 
great  man  that  even  I,  a  poor  girl  forced  to  take  the 
veil  for  want  of  a  dot,  I  would  not  take  him.  You 
don't  know  what  a  young  man  is  who  has  been  for  ten 
years  in  the  hands  of  a  Duchesse  de  Chaulieu.  None 
but  an  old  woman  of  sixty  could  put  up  with  the  little 
ailments  of  which,  the}r  sa}7,  the  great  poet  is  always 
complaining,  —  a  habit  in  Louis  XIV.  that  became  a 
perfectly  insupportable  annoyance.  It  is  true  the 
duchess  does  not  suffer  from  it  as  much  as  a  wife,  who 
would  have  him  always  about  her." 

Then,  practising  a  well-known  manoeuvre  peculiar  to 
her  sex,  Helene  d'Herouville  repeated  in  a  low  voice 
all  the  calumnies  which  women  jealous  of  the  Duchesse 
de  Chaulieu  were  in  the  habit  of  spreading  about  the 
poet.  This  little  incident,  common  as  it  is  in  the  inter- 
course of  women,  will  serve  to  show  with  what  fury 
the  hounds  were  after  Modeste's  wealth. 

Ten  days  saw  a  great  change  in  the  opinions  at  the 
Chalet  as  to  the  three  suitors  for  Mademoiselle  de  La 
Bastie's  hand.  This  change,  which  was  much  to  the 
disadvantage  of  Canalis,  came  about  through  consider- 
ations of  a  nature  which  ought  to  make  the  holders  of 


Modeste   Mignon.  267 

any  kind  of  fame  pause,  and  reflect.  No  one  can 
'deny,  if  we  remember  the  passion  with  which  people 
seek  for  autographs,  that  public  curiosity  is  greatly  ex- 
cited by  celebrit}'.  Evidently  most  provincials  never 
form  an  exact  idea  in  their  own  minds  of  how  illus- 
trious Parisians  put  on  their  cravats,  walk  on  the 
boulevards,  stand  gaping  at  nothing,  or  eat  a  cutlet ;  be- 
cause, no  sooner  do  they  perceive  a  man  clothed  in  the 
sunbeams  of  fashion  or  resplendent  with  some  dignity 
that  is  more  or  less  fugitive  (though  always  envied), 
than  they  cry  out,  ' '  Look  at  that !  "  "  How  queer  !  " 
and  other  depreciatory  exclamations.  In  a  word,  the 
mysterious  charm  that  attaches  to  every  kind  of  fame, 
even  that  which  is  most  justly  due,  never  lasts.  It  is, 
and  especially  with  superficial  people  who  are  envious 
or  sarcastic,  a  sensation  which  passes  off  with  the  ra- 
pidity of  lightning,  and  never  returns.  It  would  seem 
as  though  fame,  like  the  sun,  hot  and  luminous  at  a 
distance,  is  cold  as  the  summit  of  an  alp  when  you 
approach  it.  Perhaps  man  is  only  really  great  to  his 
peers  ;  perhaps  the  defects  inherent  in  his  constitution 
disappear  sooner  to  the  eyes  of  his  equals  than  to  those 
of  vulgar  admirers.  A  poet,  if  he  would  please  in 
ordinary  life,  must  put  on  the  fictitious  graces  of  those 
who  are  able  to  make  their  insignificance  forgotten  by 
charming  manners  and  complying  speeches.  The  poet 
of  the  faubourg  Saint-Germain,  who  did  not  choose  to 
bow  before  this  social  dictum,  was  made  before  long  to 
feel  that  an  insulting  provincial  indifference  had  suc- 
ceeded to  the  dazed  fascination  of  the  earlier  evenings. 
The  prodigal^  of  his  wit  and  wisdom  had  produced 
upon  these  worthy  souls  somewhat  the   effect  which  a 


268  Modeste   Mignon. 

shopful  of  glass-ware  produces  on  the  eye ;  in  other 
words,  the  fire  and  brilliancy  of  Canalis's  eloquence 
soon  wearied  people  who,  to  use  their  own  words, 
"  cared  more  for  the  solid." 

Forced  after  a  while  to  behave  like  an  ordinary 
man,  the  poet  found  an  unexpected  stumbling-block 
on  ground  where  La  Briere  had  alreadj-  won  the  suf- 
frage of  the  worthy  people  who  at  first  had  thought 
him  sulky.  They  felt  the  need  of  compensating  them- 
selves for  Canalis's  reputation  by  preferring  his  friend. 
The  best  of  men  are  influenced  by  such  feelings  as 
these.  The  simple  and  straightforward  young  fellow 
jarred  no  one's  self-love ;  coming  to  know  him  better 
they  discovered  his  heart,  his  modesty,  his  silent 
and  sure  discretion,  and  his  excellent  bearing.  The 
Due  d'Herouville  considered  him,  as  a  political  ele- 
ment, far  above  Canalis.  The  poet,  ill-balanced, 
ambitious,  and  restless  as  Tasso,  loved  luxur}T,  gran- 
deur, and  ran  into  debt ;  while  the  young  lawyer, 
whose  character  was  equable  and  well-balanced,  lived 
soberly,  was  useful  without  proclaiming  it,  awaited 
rewards  without  begging  for  them,  and  laid  by  his 
money. 

Canalis  had  moreover  laid  himself  open  in  a  special 
way  to  the  bourgeois  eyes  that  were  watching  him. 
For  two  or  three  clays  he  had  shown  signs  of  impa- 
tience ;  he  had  given  wray  to  depression,  to  states  of 
melancholy  without  apparent  reason,  to  those  capricious 
changes  of  temper  which  are  the  natural  results  of  the 
nervous  temperament  of  poets.  These  originalities 
i^we  use  the  provincial  word)  came  from  the  uneasiness 
that   his   conduct   toward    the   Duchesse   de   Chaiilieu 


Modeste   Mignon.  269 

which  grew  daily  less  explainable,  caused  him.  He 
knew  he  ought  to  write  to  her,  but  could  not  resolve  on 
doing  so.  All  these  fluctuations  were  carefully  re- 
marked and  commented  on  by  the  gentle  American, 
and  the  excellent  Madame  Latournelle,  and  they  formed 
the  topic  of  many  a  discussion  between  these  ,two  ladies 
and  Madame  Mignon.  Canalis  felt  the  effects  of  these 
discussions  without  being  able  to  explain  them.  The 
attention  paid  to  him  was  not  the  same,  the  faces  sur- 
rounding him  no  longer  wore  the  entranced  look  of  the 
earlier  days  ;  while  at  the  same  time  Ernest  was  evi- 
^denjtly^gaini ng  grou n d . 

For  the  last  two  days  the  poet  had  endeavored  to  fas- 
cinate Modeste  only,  and  he  took  advantage  of  every 
moment  when  he  found  himself  alone  with  her,  to  weave 
the  web  of  passionate  language  around  his  love.  Mo- 
deste's  blush,  as  she  listened  to  him  on  the  occasion  we 
have  just  mentioned,  showed  the  demoiselles  d'Herou- 
ville  the  pleasure  with  which  she  was  listening  to  sweet 
conceits  that  were  sweetly  said  ;  and  they,  horribly  un- 
easy at  the  sight,  had  immediate  recourse  to  the  ultima 
ratio  of  women  in  such  cases,  namely,  those  calumnies 
which  seldom  miss  their  object.  Accordingly,  when 
the  party  met  at  the  dinner-table  the  poet  saw  a  cloud 
on  the  brow  of  his  idol ;  he  knew  that  Mademoiselle 
d'Herouville's  malignity  allowed  him  to  lose  no  time, 
and  he  resolved  to  offer  himself  as  a  husband  at  the 
first  moment  when  he  could  find  himself  alone  with 
Modeste. 

Overhearing  a  few  acid  though  polite  remarks  ex- 
changed between  the  poet  and  the  two  noble  ladies, 
Gobenheim  nudged  Butscha  with  his  elbow,  and  said 


270 


Modeste   Mignon. 


in  an  undertone,  motioning  toward  the  poet  and  the 
grand  equerry,  — 

u  They  '11  demolish  one  another  !  " 

4 1  Canalis  has  genius  enough  to  demolish  himself  all 
alone,"  answered  the  dwarf. 


Modeste   Mignon.  271 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

A   RIDDLE   GUESSED. 

During  the  dinner,  which  was  magnificent  and  ad- 
mirably well  served,  the  duke  obtained  a  signal  advan- 
tage over  Canalis.  Modeste,  who  had  received  her 
habit  and  other  equestrian  equipments  the  night  before, 
spoke  of  taking  rides  about  the  country.  A  turn  of  the 
conversation  led  her  to  express  the  wish  to  see  a  hunt 
with  hounds,  a  pleasure  she  had  never  yet  enjoyed. 
The  duke  at  once  proposed  to  arrange  a  hunt  in  one  of 
the  crown  forests,  which  lay  a  few  leagues  from  Havre. 
Thanks  to  his  intimacy  with  the  Prince  de  Cadignan, 
Master  of  the  Hunt,  he  saw  his  chance  of  displaying 
an  almost  regal  pomp  before  Modeste's  eyes,  and  allur- 
ing her  with. a. glimpse  of  court  fascinations,  to  which 
she  could  be  introduced  by  marriage.  Glances  were 
exchanged  between  the  duke  and  the  two  demoiselles 
d'Herouville,  which  plainly  said,  "  The  heiress  is  ours  !  " 
and  the  poet,  who  detected  them,  and  who  had  nothing 
but  his  personal  splendors  to  depend  on,  determined  all 
the  more  firmly  to  obtain  some  pledge  of  affection  at 
once.  Modeste,  on  the  other  hand,  half-frightened  at 
being  thus  pushed  beyond  her  intentions  by  the  d'Herou- 
villes,  walked  rather  markedly  apart  with  Melchior, 
when  the  company  adjourned  to  the  park  after  dinner. 
With  the  pardonable  curiosity  of  a  young  girl,  she  let 


272  Modeste    Mignon. 

him  suspect  the  calumnies  which  Helene  had  poured 
into  her  ears ;  but  on  Canalis's  exclamation  of  anger, 
she  begged  him  to  keep  silence  about  them,  which  he 
promised. 

"These  stabs  of  the  tongue,"  he  said,  "are  con- 
sidered fair  in  the  great  world.  They  shock  your  up- 
right nature ;  but  as  for  me,  I  laugh  at  them ;  I  am 
even  pleased.  These  ladies  must  feel  that  the  duke's 
interests  are  in  great  peril,  when  they  have  recourse  to 
such  warfare." 

Making  the  most  of  the  advantage  Modeste  had  thus 
given  him,  Canalis  entered  upon  his  defence  with  such 
warmth,  such  eagerness,  and  with  a  passion  so  exquisitely 
expressed,  as  he  thanked  her  for  a  confidence  in  which 
he  could  venture  to  see  the  dawn  of  love,  that  she  found 
herself  suddenly  as  much  compromised  with  the  poet 
as  she  feared  to  be  with  the  grand  equerry.  Canalis, 
feeling  the  necessity  of  prompt  action,  declared  himself 
plainly.  He  uttered  vows  and  protestations  in  which 
his  poetry  shone  like  a  moon,  invoked  for  the  occasion, 
and  illuminating  his  allusions  to  the  beaut}T  of  his 
mistress  and  the  charms  of  her  evening  dress.  This 
counterfeit  enthusiasm,  in  which  the  night,  the  foliage, 
the  heavens  and  the  earth,  and  Nature  herself  played  a 
part,  carried  the  eager  lover  bejxmd  all  bounds  ;  for  he 
dwelt  on  his  disinterestedness,  and  revamped  in  his 
own  charming  style,  Diderot's  famous  apostrophe  to 
"Sophie  and  fifteen  hundred  francs!"  and  the  well- 
worn  "love  in  a  cottage"  of  every  lover  who  knows 
perfectly  well  the  length  of  the  father-in-law's  purse. 

"  Monsieur,"  said  Modeste,  after  listening  with 
delight  to  the  melody  of  this  concerto ;  ' '  the  freedom 


Modeste    Mignon.  273 

granted  to  me  by  my  parents  has  allowed  me  to  listen 
to  you ;  but  it  is  to  them  that  you  must  address  your- 
self." 

"But,"  exclaimed  Canalis,  "tell  me  that  if  I  obtain 
their  consent,  you  will  ask  nothing  better  than  to  obey 
them."  '  ' 

"  I  know  beforehand,"  she  replied,  "  that  my  father 
has  certain  fancies  which  may  wound  the  proper  pride 
of  an  old  family  like  yours.  He  wishes  to  have  his  own 
title  and  name  borne  by  his  grandsons." 

"Ah!  dear  Modeste,  what  sacrifices  would  I  not 
make  to  commit  my  life  to  the  guardian  care  of  an  angel 
like  you." 

"  You  will  permit  me  not  to  decide  in  a  moment  the 
fate  of  my  whole  life,"  she  said,  turning  to  rejoin  the 
demoiselles  d'Herouville. 

Those  noble  ladies  were  just  then  engaged  in  flattering 
the  vanity  of  little  Latournelle,  intending  to  win  him  over 
to  their  interests.  Mademoiselle  d'Herouville,  to  whom 
we  shall  in  future  confine  the  family  name,  to  distinguish 
her  from  her  niece  Helene,  was  giving  the  notary  to 
understand  that  the  post  of  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court 
in  Havre,  which  Charles  X.  would  bestow  as  she  desired, 
was  an  office  worthy  of  his  legal  talent  and  his  well- 
known  probity.  Butscha  meanwhile,  who  had  been  i 
walking  about  with  La  Briere,  was  greatly  alarmed  at  ! 
the  progress  Canalis  was  evidently  making,  and  he  way- 
laid Modeste  at  the  lower  step  of  the  portico  when  the 
whole  party  returned  to  the  house  to  endure  the  tor- 
ments of  their  inevitable  whist. 

"  Mademoiselle,"  he  said,  in  a  low  voice,  "  I  do  hope 
you  don't  call  him  Melchior." 

18 


274  Modeste    Mignon. 

"I'm  very  near  it,  my  Black  Dwarf,"  she  said,  with 
a  smile  that  might  have  made  an  angel  swear. 

"Good  God!"  exclaimed  Butscha,  letting  fall  his 
hands,  which  struck  the  marble  steps. 

u  Well !  and  is  n't  he  worth  more  than  that  spiteful 
and  gloomy  secretary  in  whom  you  take  such  an  in- 
terest?" she  retorted,  assuming,  at  the  mere  thought  of 
Ernest,  the  haughty  manner  whose  secret  belongs  exclu- 
sively to  young  girls,  —  as  if  their  virginity  lent  them 
wings  to  fly  to  heaven.  "  Pray,  would  your  little  La 
Briere  accept  me  without  a  fortune  ?  "  she  said,  after  a 
pause. 

"  Ask  your  father,"  replied  Butscha,  who  walked  a 
few  steps  from  the  house,  to  get  Modeste  at  a  safe 
distance  from  the  windows.  "  Listen  to  me,  mademoi- 
selle. You  know  that  he  who  speaks  to  you  is  ready  to 
give  not  only  his  life  but  his  honor  for  }rou,  at  any 
moment,  and  at  all  times.  Therefore  30U  ma}T  believe 
in  him ;  yon  can  confide  to  him  that  which  you  may 
not,  perhaps,  be  willing  to  say  to  your  father.  Tell  me, 
has  that  sublime  Canalis  been  making  you  the  disin- 
terested offer  that  you  now  fling  as  a  reproach  at  poor 
Ernest?" 

"Yes." 

"  Do  3'ou  believe  it?  " 

"  That  question,  my  manikin,"  she  replied,  giving 
him  one  of  the  ten  or  a  dozen  nicknames  she  had 
invented  for  him,  "  strikes  me  as  undervaluing  the 
strength  of  my  self-love." 

"  Ah,  you  are  laughing,  my  dear  Mademoiselle  Mo- 
deste ;  then  there's  no  danger:  I  hope  you  are  only 
making  a  fool  of  him." 


Modeste   Mignon.  275 

11  Pray  what  would  you  think  of  me,  Monsieur  Butscha, 
if  I  allowed  myself  to  make  fun  of  those  who  do 
me  the  honor  to  wish  to  marry  me?  You  ought  to 
know,  master  Jean,  that  even  if  a  girl  affects  to 
despise  the  most  despicable  attentions,  she  is  flattered 
by  them.'* 

"•Then  I  flatter  you?"  said  the  young  man,  looking 
up  at  her  with  a  face  that  was  illuminated  like  a  city 
for  a  festival. 

"  You?  "  she  said  ;  "  you  give  me  the  most  precious""" 
of  all  friendships,  —  a  feeling  as  disinterested  as  that  of 
a  mother  for  her  child.  Compare  yourself  to  no  one  ; 
for  even  my  father  is  obliged  to  be  devoted  to  me." 
She  paused.  u  I  cannot  say  that  Hove  you,  in  the  sense 
which  men  give  to  that  word,  but  what  I  do  give  you  is 
eternal  and  can  know  no  change." 

"  Then,"  said  Butscha,  stooping  to  pick  up  a  pebble 
that  he  might  kiss  the  hem  of  her  garment,  M  suffer  me 
to  watch  over  ayou  as  a  dragon  guards  a  treasured  The 
poet  was  covering  }rou  just  now  with  the  lace-work  of  his 
precious  phrases,  the  tinsel  of  his  promises  ;  he  chanted 
his  love  on  the  best  strings  of  his  lyre,  I  know  he  did. 
If,  as  soon  as  this  noble  lover  finds  out  how  small  your 
fortune  is,  he  makes  a  sudden  change  in  his  behavior, 
and  is  cold  and  embarrassed,  will  you  still  marry  him  ? 
shall  you  still  esteem  him?  " 

"  He  would  be  another  Francisque  Althor,"  she  said, 
with  a  gesture  of  biitex  disgust. 

"  Let  me  have  the  pleasure  of  producing  that  change 
of  scene,"  said  Butscha.  "  Not  only  shall  it  be  sudden, 
but  I  believe  I  can  change  it  back  and  make  your  poet 
as  loving  as  before,  —  nay,  it  is  possible  to  make  him 


276  Modeste   Mignon. 

blow  alternately  hot  and  cold  upon  your  heart,  just  as 
gracefully  as  he  has  talked  on  both  sides  of  an  argu- 
ment in  one  evening  without  ever  finding  it  out." 

"  If  you  are  right,"  she  said,  "  who  can  be  trusted?  " 

"  One  who  truly  loves  you." 

"  The  little  duke?" 

Butscha  looked  at  Modeste.  The  pair  walked  some 
distance  in  silence  ;  the  girl  was  impenetrable  and  not 
an  e3^elash  quivered. 

u  Mademoiselle,  permit  me  to  be  the  exponent  of  the 
thoughts  that  are  lying  at  the  bottom  of  3'our  heart  like 
sea-mosses  under  the  waves,  and  which  you  do  not 
choose  to  gather  up." 

4t  Eh!"  said  Modeste,  "  so  my  intimate  friend  and 
counsellor  thinks  himself  a  mirror,  does  he  ?  " 

u  No,  an  echo,"  he  answered,  with  a  gesture  of  sub- 
lime humility.  "The  duke  loves  you,  but  he  loves 
1/  J  you  too  much.  If  I,  a  dwarf,  have  understood  the  in- 
finite delicacy  of  3^our  heart,  it  would  be  repugnant  to 
you  to  be  worshipped  like  a  saint  in  her  shrine.  You 
are  eminently  a  woman  ;  you  neither  want  a  man  perpet- 
ually at  your  feet  of  whom  30U  are  eternally  sure,  nor  a 
1  selfish  egoist  like  Canalis,  who  will  alwa3Ts  prefer  him- 
*  self  to  you.  Why?  ah,  that  I  don't  know.  But  I  will 
make  myself  a  woman,  an  old  woman,  and  find  out  the 
meaning  of  the  plan  which  I  have  read  in  your  eyes,  and 
which  perhaps  is  in  the  heart  of  every  girl.  Neverthe- 
less, in  3Tour  great  soul  you  feel  the  need  of  worshipping. 
When  a  man  is  at  your  knees,  you  canntft  put  yourself1 
at  his.  You  can't  advance  in  that  way,  as  Voltaire 
might  say.  The  little  duke  has  too  man}T  genuflections 
in  his  moral  being  and  the  poet  has  too  few,  —  indeed,  I 


Modeste   Mignon.  277 

might  say,  none  at  all.  Ha,  I  have  guessed  the  mis- 
chief in  your  smiles  when  you  talk  to  the  grand  equerry, 
and  when  he  talks  to  you  and  you  answer  him.  You 
would  never  be  unhappy  with  the  duke,  and  everj'body 
will  approve  your  choice,  if  }Tou  do  choose  him  ;  but  you 
will  never  love  him.  The  ice  of  egotism,  and  the 
burning  heat  of  ecstasy  both  produce  indifference  in 
the  heart  of  every  woman.  It  is  evident  to  my  mind 
that  no  such  perpetual  worship  will  give  you  the  infinite 
delights  which  you  are  dreaming  of  in  marriage,  —  in 
some  marriage  where  obedience  will  be  your  pride,  where 
noble  little  sacrifices  can  be  made  and  hidden,  where  the 
heart  is  full  of  anxieties  without  a  cause,  and^  successes 
are  awaited  with  eager  hope,  where  each  new  chance  for 
magnanimit}T  is  hailed  with  joy,  where  souls  are  com- 
prehended to  their  inmost  recesses,  and  where  the  woman 
protects  with  her  love  the  man  who  protects  her." 

"  You  are  a  sorcerer !  "  exclaimed  Modeste. 

M  Neither  will  you  find  that  sweet  equality  of  feeling,   J 
that  continual  sharing  of  each  other's  life,  that  cer-  /    f/ 
tainty  of  pleasing  which  makes  marriage  tolerable,  if  j 
you  take  Canalis,  —  a  man  who  thinks  of  himself  only, 
whose  '  I '  is  the  one  string  to  his  lute,  whose  mind  is  so 
fixed  on  himself  that  he  has  hitherto  taken  no  notice  of 
your  father  or  the  duke,  —  a  man  of  second-rate  ambi- 
tions, to  whom  your  dignity   and  your  devotion  will 
matter  nothing,  who  will  make  you  a  mere  appendage 
to  his  household,  and  who  already  insults  }^ou  by  his 
indifference  to' your  behavior;    yes,   if  you   permitted 
yourself  to  go  so  far  as  to  box  your  mother's  ears 
Canalis  would  shut  his  eyes  to  it,  and  deny  your  crime 
even  to  himself,  because  he  thirsts  for  your  money. 


278  Modeste   Mignon. 

And  so,  mademoiselle,  when  I  spoke  of  the  man  who 
truly  loves  you  I  was  not  thinking  of  the  great  poet 
who  is  nothing  but  a  little  comedian,  nor  of  the  duke, 
who  might  be  a  good  marriage  for  you,  but  never  a 
husband  —  " 

"  Butscha,  my  heart  is  a  blank  page  on  which  you 
are  yourself  writing  all  that  you  read  there,"  cried 
Modeste,  interrupting  him.  ""You  are  carried  away 
by  your  provincial  hatred  for  everything  that  obliges 
you  to  look  higher  than  your  own  head.  You  can't 
forgive  a  poet  for  being  a  statesman,  for  possessing  the 
gift  of  speech,  for  having  a  noble  future  before  him,  — 
and  you  calumniate  his  intentions." 

"  His  !  —  mademoiselle,  he  will  turn  his  back  upon 
you  with  the  baseness  of  an  Althor." 

"  Make  him  play  that  pretty  little  corned}',  and  — " 

"  That  I  will!  he  shall  play  it  through  and  through 
within  three  days,  — on  Wednesday,  — recollect,  Wed- 
nesday !  Until  then,  mademoiselle,  amuse  yourself  by 
listening  to  the  little  tunes  of  the  lyre,  so  that  the  dis- 
cords and  the  false  notes  ma}'  come  out  all  the  more 
distinctly*" 

Modeste  ran  ga}Tly  back  to  the  salon,  where  La 
Brie  re,  who  was  sitting  by  a  window,  where  he  had 
doubtless  been  watching  his  idol,  rose  to  his  feet  as  if 
a  groom  of  the  chambers  had  suddenly  announced, 
"The  Queen."  It  was  a  movement  of  spontaneous 
respect,  full  of  that  living  eloquence  that  lies  in  gesture 
even  more  than  in  speech.  Spoken  love  cannot  com- 
pare with  acts  of  love  ;  and  every  young  girl  of  twenty 
has  the  wisdom  of  fifty  in  applying  the  axiom.  In  it 
lies  the  great  secret  of  attraction.     Instead  of  looking 


Modeste   Mignon.  279 

Modeste  in  the  face,  as  Canalis  who  paid  her  public 
homage  would  have  done,  the  neglected  lover  followed 
her  with  a  furtive  look  between  his  eyelids,  humble 
after  the  manner  of  Butscha,  and  almost  timid.  The 
young  heiress  observed  it,  as  she  took  her  place  by 
Canalis,  to  whose  game  she  proceeded  to  pay  .attention. 
During  a  conversation  which  ensued,  La  Briere  heard 
Modeste  say  to  her  father  that  she  should  ride  out  for 
the  first  time  on  the  following  Wednesday  ;  and  she  also 
reminded  him  that  she  had  no  whip  in  keeping  with 
her  new  equipments.  The  young  man  flung  a  light- 
ning glance  at  the  dwarf,  and  a  few  minutes  later  the 
two  were  pacing  the  terrace. 

"It  is  nine  o'clock,"  cried  Ernest.  "  I  shall  start 
for  Paris  at  full  gallop ;  I  can  get  there  to-morrow 
morning  by  ten.  My  dear  Butscha,  from  you  she  will 
accept  anything,  for  she  is  attached  to  you ;  let  me 
give  her  a  riding-whip  in  your  name.  If  you  will  do 
me  this  immense  kindness  you  shall  have  not  only  my 
friendship  but  my  devotion." 

"Ah,  you  are  very  happy,"  said  Butscha,  ruefully; 
"you  have  money,  you!" 

"Tell  Canalis  not  to  expect  me,  and  that  he  must 
find  some  pretext  to  account  for  my  absence." 

An  hour  later  Ernest  had  ridden  out  of  Havre.  He 
reached  Paris  in  twelve  hours,  where  his  first  act  was  to 
secure  a  place  in  the  mail-coach  for  Havre  on  the  follow- 
ing evening.  Then  he  went  to  three  of  the  chief  jewel- 
lers in  Paris  and  compared  all  the  whip-handles  that 
they  could  offer ;  he  was  in  search  of  some  artistic 
treasure  that  was  regally  superb.  He  found  one  at 
last,  made  by  Stidmann  for  a  Russian,  who  was  unable 


280  Modeste    Mignon. 

to  pay  for  it  when  finished,  —  a  fox-head  in  gold, 
with  a  ruby  of  exorbitant  value  ;  all  his  savings  went 
into  the  purchase,  the  cost  of  which  was  seven  thousand 
francs.  Ernest  gave  a  drawing  of  the  arms  of  La 
Bastie,  and  allowed  the  shop-people  twenty  hours  to 
engrave  them.  The  handle,  a  masterpiece  of  delicate 
workmanship,  was  fitted  to  an  india-rubber  whip  and  ' 
put  into  a  morocco  case  lined  with  velvet,  on  which  two 
M.'s  interlaced  were  stamped  in  gold. 

La  Briere  got  back  to  Havre  by  the  mail-coach  Wed- 
nesday morning  in  time  to  breakfast  with  Canalis.  The 
poet  had  concealed  his  secretary's  absence  by  declar- 
ing that  he  was  busy  with  some  work  sent  from  Paris. 
Butscha,  who  met  La  Briere  at  the  coach-door,  took  the 
box  containing  the  precious  work  of  art  to  Frangoise 
Cochet,  with  instructions  to  place  it  on  Modeste's 
dressing-table. 

"Of  course  you  will  accompany  Mademoiselle  Mo- 
deste on  her  ride  to-day  ?  "  said  Butscha,  who  went  to 
Canalis's  house  to  let  La  Briere  know  by  a  wink  that 
the  whip  had  gone  to  its  destination. 

"I?"  answered  Ernest ;  fcC  no,  I  am  going  to  bed." 

uBah!"  exclaimed  Canalis,  looking  at  him.  "I 
don't  know  what  to  make  of  you." 

Breakfast  was  then  served,  and  the  poet  naturally 
invited  their  visitor  to  stay  and  take  it.  Butscha  com- 
plied, having  seen  in  the  expression  of  the  valet's  face 
the  success  of  a  trick  in  which  wre  shall  see  the  first 
fruits  of  his  promise  to  Modeste. 

"  Monsieur  is  very  right  to  detain  the  clerk  of  Mon- 
sieur Latournelle,"  whispered  Germain  in  his  master's 
ear. 


Modeste   Mignon.  281 

Canalis  and  Germain  went  into  the  salon  on  a  sign 
that  passed  between  them. 

"I  went  out  this  morning  to  see  the  men  fish,  mon- 
sieur," said  the  valet,  —  "  an  excursion  proposed  to  me 
1>3T  the  captain  of  a  smack,  whose  acquaintance  I  have 
made."  , 

Germain  did  not  acknowledge  that  he  had  the  bad 
taste  to  play  billiards  in  a  cafe,  —  a  fact  of  which 
Butscha  had  taken  advantage  to  surround  him  with 
friends  ofliis  own  and  manage  him  as  he  pleased. 

"  Well?  "  said  Canalis,  "  to  the  point,  —  quick  !  " 

"Monsieur  le  baron,  I  heard  a  conversation  about 
Monsieur  Mignon,  which  I  encouraged  as  far  as  I 
could  ;  for  no  one,  of  course,  knew  that  I  belong  to  you. 
Ah !  monsieur,  judging  by  the  talk  of  the  quays,  you 
are  running  your  head  into  a  noose.  The  fortune  of 
Mademoiselle  de  La  Bastie  is,  like  her  name,  modest. 
The  vessel  on  which  the  father  returned  does  not  belong 
to  him,  but  to  rich  China  merchants  to  whom  he  ren- 
ders an  account.  They  even  say  things  that  are  not 
at  all  flattering  to  Monsieur  Mignon' s  honor.  Having 
heard  that  you  and  Monsieur  le  due  were  rivals  for 
Mademoiselle  de  La  Bastie's  hand,  I  have  taken  the 
liberty  to  warn  you ;  of  the  two,  would  n't  it  be  better 
that  his  lordship  should  gobble  her?  As  I  came  home 
I  walked  round  the  quays,  and  into  that  theatre-hall 
where  the  merchants  meet ;  I  slipped  boldly  in  and  out 
among  them.  Seeing  a  well-dressed  stranger,  those 
worthy  fellows  began  to  talk  to  me  of  Havre,  and  I 
got  them,  little  by  little,  to  speak  of  Colonel  Mignon. 
What  they„said  only  confirms  the  stories  the  fishermen 
told  me ;  and  I  feel  that  I  should  fail  in  my  duty  if  I 


282 


Modeste   Mignon. 


1/ 


keep  silence.  That  is  why  I  did  not  get  home  in  time 
to  dress  monsieur  this  morning." 

"  What  am  I  to  do?  "  cried  Canalis,  who  remembered 
his  proposals  to  Modeste  the  night  before,  and  did  not 
see  how  he  could  get  out  of  them. 

u  Monsieur  knows  my  attachment  to  him,"  said  Ger- 
main, perceiving  that  the  poet  was  thrown  quite  off  his 
balance;  fcChe  will  not  be  surprised  if  I  give  him  a 
word  of  advice.  There  is  that  clerk ;  try  to  get  the 
truth  out  of  him.  Perhaps  he  '11  unbutton  after  a  bottle 
or  two  of  champagne,  or  at  any  rate  a  third.  It  would 
be  strange  indeed  if  monsieur,  who  will  one  day  be  an 
ambassador,  as  Philoxene  has  heard  Madame  la  du- 
chesse  say  time  and  time  again,  could  n't  turn  a  little 
notary's  clerk  inside  out." 


Modeste   Mignon.  283 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

BUTSCHA   DISTINGUISHES   HIMSELF. 

At  this  instant  Butscha,  the  hidden  prompter  of  the 
fishing  party,  was  requesting  the  secretary  to  say  noth- 
ing about  his  trip  to  Paris,  and  not  to  interfere  in  any 
way  with  what  he,  Butscha,  might  do.  The  dwarf  had 
already  made  use  of  an  unfavorable  feeling  lately 
roused  against  Monsieur  Mignon  in  Havre  in  conse- 
quence of  his  reserve  and  his  determination  to  keep 
silence  as  to  the  amount  of  his  fortune.  The  persons 
who  were  most  bitter  against  him  even  declared  calum- 
niously  that  he  had  made  over  a  large  amount  of  prop- 
erty to  Dumay  to  save  it  from  the  just  demands  of 
his  associates  in  China.  Butscha  took  advantage  of 
this  state  of  feeling.  He  asked  the  fishermen,  who 
owed  him  many  a  good  turn,  to  keep  the  secret  and 
lend  him  their  tongues.  They  served  him  well.  The 
captain  of  the  fishing-smack  told  Germain  that  one  of 
his  cousins,  a  sailor,  had  just  returned  from  Marseilles, 
where  he  had  been  paid  off  from  the  brig  in  which  Mon- 
sieur Mignon  returned  to  France.  The  brig  had  been 
sold  to  the  account  of  some  other  person  than  Mon- 
sieur Mignon,  and  the  cargo  was  only  worth  three  or 
four  hundred  thousand  francs  at  the  utmost. 

"  Germain,"  said  Canalis,  as  the  valet  was  leaving 
the  room,  "serve  champagne  and  claret.     A  member 


284  Modeste   Mignon. 

of  the  legal  fraternity  of  Havre  must  carr}'  away  with 
him  proper  ideas  of  a  poet's  hospitality.  Besides,  he 
has  got  a  wit  that  is  equal  to  Figaro's,"  added  Canalis, 
laying  his  hand  on  the  dwarfs  shoulder,  "  and  we  must 
make  it  foam  and  sparkle  with  champagne ;  yon  and 
I,  Ernest,  will  not  spare  the  bottle  either.  Faith,  it  is 
over  two  years  since  I  've  been  drunk,"  he  added,  look- 
ing at  La  Briere. 

"  Not  drunk  with  wine,  you  mean,"  said  Butscha, 
looking  keenly  at  him,  "yes,  I  can  believe  that.  You 
get  drunk  every  day  on  yourself,  you  drink  in  so  much 
praise.  Ha,  you  are  handsome,  you  are  a  poet,  30U  are 
Tamous  in  your  lifetime,  you  have  the  gift  of  an  eloquence 
that  is  equal  to  }rour  genius,  and  30U  please  all  women, 
—  even  my  master's  wife.  Admired  by  the  finest  sul- 
tana-valide  that  I  ever  saw  in  my  life  (and  I  never  saw 
but  her)  you  can,  if  you  choose,  marry  Mademoiselle  de 
La  Bastie.  Goodness  !  the  mere  inventory  of  your  pres- 
ent advantages,  not  to  speak  of  the  future  (a  noble  title, 
peerage,  embassy!),  is  enough  to  make  me  drunk  al- 
V^ready,  —  like  the  men  who  bottle  other  men's  wine." 

M  All  such  social  distinctions,"  said  Canalis,  "  are  of 
little  use  without  the  one  thing  that  gives  them  value, — 
wealth.  Here  we  can  talk  as  men  with  men ;  fine  sen- 
timents only  do  in  verse." 

"  That  depends  on  circumstances,"  said  the  dwarf, 
with  a  knowing  gesture. 

"•Ah!  you  writer  of  conveyances,"  said  the  poet, 
smiling  at  the  interruption,  "  }tou  know  as  well  as  I  do 
that  cottage  rhymes  with  pottage,  —  and  who  would  like 
to  live  on  that  for  the  rest  of  his  days  ?  " 

At  table  Butscha  plaj-ed  the  part  of  Trigaudin,  in  the 


Modeste   Mignon.  285 

Maison  en  loterie,  in  a  way  that  alarmed  Ernest,  who 
did  not  know  the  waggery  of  a  law3*er's  office,  which 
is  quite  equal  to  that  of  an  atelier.  Butscha  poured 
forth  the  scandalous  gossip  of  Havre,  the  private  his- 
tory of  fortunes  and  boudoirs,  and  the  crimes  committed 
code  in  hand,  which  are  called  in  Normandy,  ,"  getting 
out  of  a  thing  as  best  you  can."  He  spared  no  one  ;  and 
his  liveliness  increased  with  the  torrents  of  wine  which 
poured  down  his  throat  like  rain  through  a  gutter. 

"  Do  3Tou  know,  La  Briere,"  said  Canalis,  filling 
Butscha's  glass,  "  that  this  fellow  would  make  a 
capital  secretary  to  the  embassy?" 

M  And  oust  his  chief!"  cried  the  dwarf  flinging  a 
look  at  Canalis  whose  insolence  was  lost  in  the  gurgling 
of  carbonic  acid  gas.  "  I  've  little  enough  gratitude  and 
quite  enough  scheming  to  get  astride  of  your  shoulders. 
Ha,  ha,  a  poet  carrying  a  hunchback  !  that 's  been  seen, 
often  seen  —  on  book-shelves.  Come,  don't  look  at  me 
as  if  I  were  swallowing  swords.  My  dear  great  genius* 
you  're  a  superior  man ;  }rou  know  that  gratitude 
is  the  word  of  fools ;  they  stick  it  in  the  dictionary, 
but  it  is  n't  in  the  human  heart ;  pledges  are  worth 
nothing,  except  on  a  certain  mount  that  is  neither  Pin^ 
dus  nor  Parnassus.  You  think  I  owe  a  great  deal  to 
my  master's  wife,  who  brought  me  up.  Bless  you,  the 
whole  town  has  paid  her  for  that  in  praises,  respect, 
and  admiration,  —  the  very  best  of  coin.  I  don't  recog- 
nize any  service  that  is  only  the  capital  of  self-love. 
Men  make  a  commerce  of  their  services,  and  gratitude 
goes  down  on  the  debit  side, — that's  all.  As  to 
schemes,  they  are  iny  divinit}\  What?"  he  exclaimed, 
at  a  gesture  of  Canalis,  "  don't  you  admire  the  faculty 


%*W. 


286  Modeste   Mignon. 

which  enables  a  wily  man  to  get  the  better  of  a  man  of 
genius?  it  takes  the  closest  observation  of  his  vices, 
and  his  weaknesses,  and  the  wit  to  seize  the  happy 
moment.  Ask  diplomacy  if  its  greatest  triumphs  are 
not  those  of  craft  over  force?  If  I  were  your  secre- 
tary, Monsieur  le  baron,  3^ou  'd  soon  be  prime-minister, 
because  it  would  be  my  interest  to  have  you  so.  Do 
3'ou  want  a  specimen  of  my  talents  in  that  line  ?  Well 
then,  listen  ;  you  love  Mademoiselle  Modeste  distract- 
edly, and  you  've  good  reason  to  do  so.  \  The  girl  has 
my  fullest  esteem  ;  she  is  a  true  Parisian.  Sometimes 
we  get  a  few  real  Parisians  born  down  here  in  the 
provinces.  Well,  Modeste  is  just  the  woman  to  help  a 
man's  career.  She  's  got  that  in  her,"  he  cried,  with  a 
turn  of  his  wrist  in  the  air.  "  But  you  've  a  dangerous 
competitor  in  the  duke ;  what  will  you  give  me  to  get 
him  out  of  Havre  within  three  da}Ts?" 

"  Finish  this  bottle,"  said  the  poet,  refilling  Butscha's 
glass. 

"You'll  make  me  drunk,"  said  the  dwarf,  tossing 
off  his  ninth  glass  of  champagne.  "Have  you  a  bed 
where  I  could  sleep  it  off?  My  master  is  as  sober  as 
the  camel  that  he  is,  and  Madame  Latournelle  too. 
They  are  brutal  enough,  both  of  them,  to  scold  me ; 
and  they  'd  have  the  rights  of  it  too  —  there  are  those 
deeds  I  ought  to  be  drawing  !  —  "  Then,  suddenly  re- 
turning to  his  previous  ideas,  after  the  fashion  of  a 
drunken  man,  he  exclaimed,  "and  I've  such  a  mem- 
ory ;  it  is  on  a  par  with  my  gratitude." 

"  Butscha  !  "  cried  the  poet, """you  said  just  now  you 
had  no  gratitude ;  you  contradict  yourself." 

"  Not  at  all,"  he  replied.     "  To  forget  a  thing  means 


Modeste    Mignon.  287 

almost  always  recollecting  it.  Come,  come,  do  you 
want  me  to^get_rid_of .  the  duke?  I'm  cut  out  for  a 
secretary," 

"  How  could  you  manage  it?"  said  Canalis,  delighted 
to  mTcTthe  conversation  taking  this  turn  of  its  own 
accord. 

"  That^s  none  of  your  business,"  said  the  dwarf,  with 
a  portentous  hiccough. 

Butscha's  head  rolled  between  his  shoulders,  and  his 
e}res  turned  from  Germain  to  La  Briere,  and  from  La 
Briere  to  Canalis,  after  the  manner  of  men  who,  knowing 
they  are  tipsy,  wish  to  see  what  other  men  are  thinking 
of  them  ;  for  in  the  shipwreck  of  drunkenness  it  is 
noticeable  that  self-love  is  the  last  thing  that  goes  to 
the  bottom. 

"  Ha  !  my  great  poet,  you  're  a  pretty  good  trickster 
yourself;  but  you  are  not  deep  enough.     What  do  you 
mean  by  taking  me  for  one  of  your  own  readers,  — }Tou, 
who  sent  your  friend  to  Paris,  full  gallop,  to  inquire  into 
the  property  of  the  Mignon  family  ?     Ha,  ha  !  I  hoax, 
thou  hoaxest,  we  hoax —   Good  !     But  do  me  the  honor 
to  believe  that  I  'm  deep  enough  to  keep  the  secrets  of  my    \^j 
own  business.     As  the  head- clerk  of  a  notary,  my  heart      n   yf^ 
is  a  locked  box,  padlocked  !     My  mouth  never  opens  to     ^ 
let  out  anything  about  a  client.     I  know  all,  and  I  know 
nothing.     Besides,  my  passion  is  well  known.     I  love 
Modeste  ;   she  is  my  pupil,  and  she  must  make  a  good     ) 
marriage.     I  '11  fool  the  duke,  if  need  be  ;  and  you  shall  c 
marry  —  " 

"  Germain,  coffee  and  liqueurs,"  said  Canalis. 

"  Liqueurs  !  "  repeated  Butscha  with  a  wave  of  his 
hand,  and  the  air  of  a  sham  virgin  repelling  seduction ; 


288  Modeste    Mignon. 

"Ah,  those  poor  deeds!  one  of  'em  was  a  marriage 
contract ;  and  that  second  clerk  of  mine  is  as  stupid 
as  —  as  — an  epithalamium,  and  he 's  capable  of  digging 
his  penknife  right  through  the  bride's  paraphernalia ; 
he  thinks  he 's  a  handsome  man  because  he  's  five  'feet 
six,  —  idiot !  " 

"  Here  is  some  creme  de  the,  a  liqueur  of  the  West 
Indies,"  said  Canalis.  "  You,  whom  Mademoiselle 
Modeste  consults  —  " 

u  Yes,  she  consults  me." 

"  Well,  do  you  think  she  loves  me  ?  "  asked  the  poet. 

"Loves  you?  yes,  more  than  she  loves  the  duke," 
answered  the  dwarf,  rousing  himself  from  a  stupor  which 
was  admirably  played.  "  She  loves  you  for  youx-dis- 
interestedness.  She  told  me  she  was  read}'  to  make  the 
greatest  sacrifices  for  your  sake ;  to  give  up  dress  and 
spend  as  little  as  possible  on  herself,  and  devote  her 
life  to  showing  you  that  in  manying  her  you  had  n't 
done  so  [hiccough]  bad  a  thing  for  j^ourself.  She  's 
as  right  as  a  trivet,  —  yes,  and  well  informed.  She 
knows  everything,  that  girl." 

4 '  And  she  has  three  hundred  thousand  francs  ?  " 

"  There  may  be  quite  as  much  as  that,"  cried  the  dwarf, 
enthusiastically.  "  Papa  Mignon,  —  mignon  by  name, 
mignon  b}r  nature,  and  that's  why  I  respect  him, — well,  he 
would  rob  himself  of  everything  to  marry  his  daughter.' 
Your  Restoration  [hiccough]  has  taught  him  how  to 
live  on  half-pay ;  he  'd  be  quite  content  to  live  with 
Dumay  on  next  to  nothing,  if  he  could  rake  and  scrape 
enough  together  to  give  the  little  one  three  hundred 
thousand  francs.  But  don't  let 's  forget  that  Dumay  is 
going  to  leave  all  his  money  to  Modeste.     Dumay,  you 


Modeste   Mignon.  28  b 

know,  is  a  Breton,  and  that  fact  clinches  the  matter ;  he 
won't  go  back  from  his  word,  and  his  fortune  is  equal  to 
the  colonel's.  But  I  don't  approve  of  Monsieur  Mignon's 
taking  back  that  villa,  and,  as  the}'  often  ask  my  advice, 
I  told  them  so.  '  You  sink  too  much  in  it,'  I  said  ;  *  if  Vil- 
quin  does  not  buy  it  back  there 's  two  hundred  thousand 
francs  which  won't  bring  }ou  in  a  penn}< ;  it  only  leaves 
you  a  hundred  thousand  to  get  along  with,  and  it  is  n't 
enough.'  The  colonel  and  Dumay  are  consulting  about 
it  now.  But  nevertheless,  between  you  and  me,  Mo- 
deste is  sure  to  be  rich.  I  hear  talk  on  the  quays 
against  it ;  but  that's  all  nonsense  ;  people  are  jealous. 
Why,  there 's  no  such  dot  in  Havre,"  cried  Butscha, 
beginning  to  count  on  his  fingers.  .  "Two  to  three 
hundred  thousand  in  ready  money,"  bending  back  the 
thumb  of  his  left  hand  with  the  forefinger  of  his  right, 
"that's  one  item;  the  reversion  of  the  villa  Mignon, 
that's  another;  tertio,  Dumay's  property!"  doubling 
down  his  middle  finger.  "  Ha !  little  Modeste  ~ma}T 
count  upon  her  six  hundred  thousand  francs  as  soon  as 
the  two  old  soldiers  have  got  their  marching  orders  for 
eternit}\" 

This  coarse  and  candid  statement,  intermingled  with 
a  variety  of  liquors,  sobered  Canalis  as  much  as  it 
appeared  to  befuddle  Butscha.  To  the  latter,  a  young 
provincial,  such  a  fortune  must  of  course  seem  colossal. 
He  let  his  head  fall  into  the  palm  of  his  right  hand,  and 
putting  his  elbows  majestically  on  the  table,  blinked  his 
eyes  and  continued  talking  to  himself:  — 

"  In  twent}T  years,  thanks  to  that  Code,  which  pillages 
fortunes  under  what  the}'  call  *  Successions,'  an  heiress 
worth  a  million  will  be  as  rare  as  generosit}T  in  a  money- 

19 


290  Modeste   Mignon. 

lender.  Suppose  Modeste  does  want  to  spend  all  the 
interest  of  her  own  monej',  —  well,  she  is  so  pretty,  so 
sweet  and  pretty  ;  why  she  's  —  you  poets  are  always  af- 
ter metaphors  —  she 's  a  weasel  as  tricky  as  a  monke}7." 

"  How  came  you  to  tell  me  she  had  six  millions  ?  " 
said  Canalis  to  La  Briere,  in  a  low  voice. 

"  My  friend,"  said  Ernest,  "  I  do  assure  you  that  I 
was  bound  to  silence  by  an  oath ;  perhaps,  even  now 
I  ought  not  to  say  as  much  as  that." 

"  Bound  !  to  whom  ?  " 

"To  Monsieur  Mignon." 
-^.  "  Ernest !   you.  who  know  how  essential  fortune   is 
to  me  —  " 

Butscha  snored. 

u  —  who  know  my  situation,  and  all  that  I  shall 
lose  in  the  Duchesse  de  Chaulieu,  by  this  attempt  at 
marrying,  you  could  coldly  let  me  plunge  into  such  a 
thing  as  this  !  "  exclaimed  Canalis,  turning  pale.  "  It 
was  a  question  of  friendship  ;  and  ours  was  a  compact 
entered  into  long  before  you  ever  saw  that  crafty 
Mignon." 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  said  Ernest,  "  I  love  Modeste  too 
well  to  —  " 

"Fool!  then  take  her,"  cried  the  poet,  "and  break 
your  oath." 

"Will  you  promise  me  on  your  word  of  honor  to 
forget  what  I  now  tell  3011,  and  to  behave  to  me  as 
though  this  confidence  had  never  been  made,  whatever 
happens  ? " 

44 1  '11  swear  that,  by  my  mother's  memory." 

"Well  then,"  said  La  Briere,  "Monsieur  Mignon 
told  me  in  Paris  that  he  was  very  far  from  having  the 


Modeste   Mignon.  291 

colossal  fortune  which  the  Mongenocls  told  me  about 
and  which  I  mentioned  to  you.  The  colonel  intends  to 
give  two  hundred  thousand  francs  to  his  daughter. 
And  now,  Melchior,  I  ask  you,  was  the  father  really 
t|istrustful  of  us,  as  you  thought;  or  was  he  sincere? 
It  is  not  for  me  to  answer  those  questions.  If  Modeste 
without  a  fortune  deigns  to  choose  me,  she  will  be  my 
wife." 

"A  blue-stocking!  educated  till  she  is  a  terror!  a 
girl  who  has  read  everything,  who  knows  everything,  — 
in  theory,"  cried  Canalis,  hastily,  noticing  La  Briere's 
gesture,  "  a  spoiled  child,  brought  up  in  luxury  in  her 
childhood,  and  weaned  of  it  for  five  years.  Ah !  my 
poor  friend,  take  care  what  you  are  about." 

M  Ode  and  Code,"  said  Butscha,  waking  up,  "you  do 
the  ode  and  I  the  code  ;  there  's  only  a  C's  difference 
between  us.     Well,  now,  code  comes  from  coda,  a  tail, 

—  mark  that  word  !  See  here  !  a  bit  of  good  advice  is 
worth  your  wine  and  your  cream  of  tea.    Father  Mignon 

—  he 's  cream,  too  ;  the  cream  of  honest  men  —  he  is 
going  with  his  daughter  on  this  riding  party ;  do  you 
go  up  frankly  and  talk  dot  to  him.  He  '11  answer  plainly, 
and  you  '11  get  at  the  truth  just  as  surely  as  I  'm  drunk, 
and  you  're  a  great  poet,  —  but  no  matter  for  that ;  we 
are  to  leave  Havre  together,  that 's  settled,  is  n't  it  ? 
I  'm  to  be  your  secretary  in  place  of  that  little  fellow 
who  sits  there  grinning  at  me  and  thinking  I  ?m  drunk. 
Come,  let's  go,  and  leave  him  to  many  the  girl." 

Canalis  rose  to  leave  the  room  to  dress  for  the 
excursion. 

uHush,  not  a  word,  —  he  is  going  to  commit  sui- 
cide,"  whispered   Butscha,  sober   as   a  judge,  to   La 


292  Modeste  Mignon. 

Briere  as  he  made  the  gesture  of  a  street  boy  at  Ca- 
nalis's-  back.  u  Adieu,  my  chief!  "  he  shouted,  in 
stentorian  tones,  "  will  you  allow  me  to  take  a  snooze 
in  that  kiosk  down  in  the  garden?" 

U  Make  yourself  at  home,"  answered  the  poet. 

Butscha,  pursued  by  the  laughter  of  the  three  ser- 
vants of  the  establishment,  gained  the  kiosk  by  walking 
over  the  flower-beds  and  round  the  vases  with  the  per- 
verse grace  of  an  insect  describing  its  interminable  zig- 
zags as  it  tries  to  get  out  of  a  closed  window.  When 
he  had  clambered  into  the  kiosk,  and  the  servants  had 
retired,  he  sat  down  on  a  wooden  bench  and  wallowed 
in  the  delights  of  his  triumph.  He  had  completely 
fooled  a  great  man :  he  had  not  only  torn  off  his  mask, 
but  he  had  made  him  untie  the  strings  himself ;  and  he 
laughed  like  an  author  over  his  own  pla}r,  —  that  is  to 
say,  with  a  true  sense  of  the  immense  value  of  his 
vis  comica. 

"Men  are  tops!"  he  cried,  "you've  only  to  find 
the  twine  to  wind  'em  with.  But  I  'm  like  my  fellows," 
he  added,  presently.  "  I  should  faint  away  if  any  one 
came  and  said  to  me  '  Mademoiselle  Modeste  has  been 
thrown  from  her  horse,  and  has  broken  her  leg.'  " 


Modeste    Mignon.  293 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

THE    POET    FEELS    THAT   HE   IS    LOVED    TOO'  WELL. 

An  hour  later,  Modeste,  charmingly  equipped  in  a 
bottle-green  cassimere  habit,  a  small  hat  with  a  green 
veil,  buckskin  gloves,  and  velvet  boots  which  met  the 
lace  frills  of  her  drawers,  and  mounted  on  an  elegantly 
caparisoned  little  horse,  was  exhibiting  to  her  father 
and  the  Due  d'  Herouville  the  beautiful  present  she  had 
just  received ;  she  was  evidently  delighted  with  an  at- 
tention of  a  kind  that  particularly  flatters  women. 

"  Did  it  come  from  you,  Monsieur  le  due?  "  she  said, 
holding  the  sparkling  handle  toward  him.  "There 
was  a  card  with  it,  saying,  '  Guess  if  you  can,'  and 
some  asterisks.  Franchise  and  Duma}'  credit  Butscha 
with  this  charming  surprise ;  but  my  dear  Butscha  is 
not  rich  enough  to  buy  such  rubies.  And  as  for  papa 
(to  whom  I  said,  as  I  remember,  on  Sunda}'  evening, 
that  I  had  no  whip),  he  sent  to  Rouen  for  this  one," 
—  pointing  to  a  whip  in  her  father's  hand,  with  a  top 
like  a  cone  of  turquoise,  a  fashion  then  in  vogue  which 
has  since  become  vulgar. 

"I  would  give  ten  years  of  my  old  age,  mademoiselle, 
to  have  the  right  to  offer  you  that  beautiful  jewel,"  said 
the  duke,  courteously. 

"  Ah,  here  comes  the  audacious  giver ! "  cried  Mo- 
deste, as  Canalis  rode  up.     "  It  is  only  a  poet  who 


294  Modeste   Mignon. 

knows  where  to  find  such  choice  things.  Monsieur,"  she 
said  to  Melchior,  "  my  father  will  scold  you,  and  say  that 
3'ou  justify  those  who  accuse  you  of  extravagance." 

"  Oh  !  "  exclaimed  Canalis,  with  apparent  simplicity, 
"  so  that  is  why  La  Briere  rode  at  full  gallop  from 
Havre  to  Paris?" 

"  Does  your  secretary  take  such  liberties  ? "  said 
Modeste,  turning  pale,  and  throwing  the  whip  to  Fran- 
chise with  an  impetuosity  that  expressed  scorn.  "Give 
me  your  whip,  papa." 

"Poor  Ernest,  who  lies  there  on  his  bed  half-dead 
with  fatigue ! "  said  Canalis,  overtaking  the  girl,  who 
had  already  started  at  a  gallop.  "  You  are  pitiless,  ma- 
demoiselle. 'I  have'  (the  poor  fellow  said  to  me) 
'only  this  one  chance  to  remain  in  her  memory. ' " 

"  And  should  you  think  well  of  a  woman  who  could 
take  presents  from  half  the  parish  ?  "  said  Modeste. 

She  was  surprised  to  receive  no  answer  to  this  in- 
quiry, and  attributed  the  poet's  inattention  to  the  noise 
of  the  horse's  feet. 

"How  you  delight  in  tormenting  those  who  love 
you,"  said  the  duke.  "Your  nobility  of  soul  and  your 
pride  are  so  inconsistent  with  your  faults  that  I  begin  to 
suspect  you  calumniate  yourself,  and  do  those  naughty 
things  on  purpose." 

"  Ah  !  have  you  only  just  found  that  out,  Monsieur 
le  due?"  she  exclaimed,  laughing.  "You  have  the 
sagacity  of  a  husband." 

They  rode  half  a  mile  in  silence.  Modeste  was  a 
good  deal  astonished  not  to  receive  the  fire  of  the  poet's 
eyes.  The  evening  before,  as  she  was  pointing  out  to 
him  an  admirable  effect  of  setting  sunlight  across  the 


Modeste   Mignon.  295 

water,  she  had  said,  remarking  his  inattention,  "  Well, 
don't  you  see  it  ?  "  —  to  which  he  replied,  <c  I  can  see 
only  }Tour  hand  ;  "  but  now  his  admiration  for  the  beau- 
ties of  nature  seemed  a  little  too  intense  to  be  natural. 

"  Does  Monsieur  de  La  Briere  know  how  to  ride  ?  * 
she  asked,  for  the  purpose  of  teasing  him. 

"Not  very  well,  but  he  gets  along,"  answered  the 
poet,  cold  as  Gobenheim  before  the  colonel's  return. 

At  a  cross-road,  which  Monsieur  Mignon  made  them 
take  through  a  lovely  valley  to  reach  a  height  overlook- 
ing the  Seine,  Canalis  let  Modeste  and  the  duke  pass 
him,  and  then  reined  up  to  join  the  colonel. 

44  Monsieur  le  comte,"  he  said,  "  you  are  an  openH  Ut] 
hearted  soldier,  and  I  know  you  will  regard  my  frank- 
ness as  a  title  to  your  esteem.  When  proposals  of 
marriage,  with  all  their  brutal  —  or,  if  you  please,  too 
civilized  —  discussions,  are  carried  on  by  third  parties, 
it  is  an  injury  to  all.  We  are  both  gentlemen,  and  both 
discreet ;  and  you,  like  myself,  have  passed  beyond  the 
age  of  surprises.  Let  us  therefore  speak  as  intimates. 
I  will  set  you  the  example.  I  am  twenty-nine  3-ears 
old,  without  landed  estates,  and  full  of  ambition.  Ma- 
demoiselle Modeste,  as  you  must  have  perceived,  pleases 
me  extremely.  Now,  in  spite  of  the  little  defects  which 
your  dear  girl  likes  to  assume  —  " 

14 — not  counting  those  she  really  possesses,"  said 
the  colonel,  smiling,  — 

14  —  I  should  gladly  make  her  my  wife,  and  I  believe 
I  could  render  her  happy.  The  question  of  money  is 
of  the  utmost  importance  to  my  future,  which  hangs 
to-day  in  the  balance.  All  young  girls  expect  to  be 
loved  whether  or  no  —  fortune  or  no  fortune.     But  you 


? 


296  Modeste   Mignon. 

are  not  the  man  to  marry  your  dear  Modeste  without  a 
dot,  and  my  situation  does  not  allow  me  to  make  a 
marriage  of  what  is  called  love  unless  with  a  woman 
who  has  a  fortune  at  least  equal  to  mine.  I  have,  from 
my  emoluments  and  sinecures,  from  the  Academy  and 
from  my  works,  about  thirty  thousand  francs  a-yTear,  a 
large  income  for  a  bachelor.  If  my  wife  brought  me  as 
much  more,  I  should  still  be  in  about  the  same  condi- 
tion that  I  am  now.  Shall  you  give  Mademoiselle 
Modeste  a  million  ?" 

"  Ah,  monsieur,  we  have  not  reached  that  point  as 
yet,"  said  the  colonel,  Jesuitical^. 

"  Then  suppose,"  said  Canalis,  quickly,  "  that  we  go 
no  further;  we  will  let  the  matter  drop.  You  shall 
have  no  cause  to  complain  of  me,  Monsieur  le  comte ; 
the  world  shall  consider  me  among  the  unfortunate  suit- 
ors of  your  charming  daughter.  Give  me  your  word  of 
honor  to  say  nothing  on  the  subject  to  any  one,  not 
even  to  Mademoiselle  Modeste,  because,"  he  added, 
throwing  a  word  of  promise  to  the  ear,  "  my  circum- 
stances may  so  change  that  I  can  ask  you  for  her  with- 
xm&dqt." 

"  I  promise  you  that,"  said  the  colonel.  "  You  know, 
monsieur,  with  what  assurance  the  public,  both  in  Paris 
and  the  provinces,  talk  of  fortunes  that  they  make  and 
unmake.  People  exaggerate  both  happiness  and  un- 
happiness ;  we  are  never  so  fortunate  nor  so  unfortu- 
nate as  people  say  we  are.  There  is  nothing  sure  and 
certain  in  business  except  investments  in  land.  I  am 
awaiting  the  accounts  of  m}T  agents  with  very  great  im- 
patience. The  sale  of  my  merchandise  and  of  nry  ship, 
and  the  settlement  of  my  affairs  in  China,  are  not  yet 


Modeste   Mignon.  297 

concluded ;  and  I  cannot  know  the  full  amount  of 
my  fortune  for  at  least  six  months.  I  did,  however, 
say  to  Monsieur  de  La  Briere  in  Paris  that  I  would 
guarantee  a  dot  of  two  hundred  thousand  francs  in 
ready  money.  I  wish  to  entail  my  estates,  and  enable 
my  grandchildren  to  inherit  my  arms  and  title." 

Canalis  did  not  listen  to  this  statement;  after  the 
opening  sentence.  The  four  riders,  having  now  reached 
a  wider  road,  went  abreast  and  soon  reached  a  stretch 
of  table-land,  from  which  the  eye  took  in  on  one  side 
the  rich  valley  of  the  Seine  toward  Rouen,  and  on  the 
other  an  horizon  bounded  only  by  the  sea. 

"  Butscha  was  right,  God  is  the  greatest  of  all  land- 
scape painters,"  said  Canalis,  contemplating  the  view, 
which  is  unique  among  the  many  fine  scenes  that  have 
made  the  shores  of  the  Seine  so  justly  celebrated. 

"  Above  all  do  we  feel  that,  my  dear  baron,"  said 
the  duke,  "  on  hunting-days,  when  nature  has  a  voice, 
and  a  lively  tumult  breaks  the  silence ;  at  such  times 
the  landscape,  changing  rapidly  as  we  ride  through  it, 
seems  really  sublime." 

M  The  sun  is  the  inexhaustible  palette,"  said  Modeste, 
looking  at  the  poet  in  a  species  of  bewilderment. 

A  remark  that  she  presently  made  on  his  absence  of 
mind  gave  him  an  opportunity  of  saying  that  he  was 
just  then  absorbed  in  his  own  thoughts,  —  an  excuse  that 
authors  have  more  reason  for  giving  than  other  men. 

"  Are  we  really  made  happy  by  carrying  our  lives 
into  the  midst  of  the  world,  and  swelling  them  with  all 
sorts  of  fictitious  wants  and  over-excited  vanities  ? " 
said  Modeste,  moved  b}r  the  aspect  of  the  fertile  and 
billow}'  country  to  long  for  a  philosophically  tranquil  life. 


298  Modeste   Mignon. 

"  That  is  a  bucolic,  mademoiselle,  which  is  only 
written  on  tablets  of  gold,"  said  the  poet. 

"  And  sometimes  under  garret-roofs,"  remarked  the 
colonel. 

Modeste  threw  a  piercing  glance  at  Canalis,  which  he 
was  unable  to  sustain ;  she  was  conscious  of  a  ringing 
in  her  ears,  darkness  seemed  to  spread  before  her,  and 
then  she  suddenly  exclaimed  in  icy  tones :  — 

"  Ah!  it  is  Wednesday  !  " 

"  I  do  not  say  this  to  flatter  }Tour  passing  caprice, 
mademoiselle,"  said  the  duke,  to  whom  the  little  scene, 
so  tragical  for  Modeste,  had  left  time  for  thought ;  "  but 
I  declare  I  am  so  profoundly  disgusted  with  the  world 
and  the  Court  and  Paris,  that  had  I  a  Duchesse 
d'Herouville,  gifted  with  the  wit  and  graces  of  made- 
moiselle, I  would  gladly  bind  myself  to  live  like  a 
philosopher  at  nry  chateau,  doing  good  around  me, 
draining  my  marshes,  educating  my  children  — " 

"  That,  Monsieur  le  due,  will  be  set  to  the  account  of 
}Tour  great  goodness,"  said  Modeste,  letting  her  e}'es 
rest  steadily  on  the  noble  gentleman.  "  You  flatter  me 
in  not  thinking  me  frivolous,  and  in  believing  that  I 
have  enough  resources  within  myself  to  be  able  to  live 
in  solitude.  It  is  perhaps  my  lot,"  she  added,  glancing 
at  Canalis,  with  an  expression  of  pity. 

"  It  is  the  lot  of  all  insignificant  fortunes,"  said  the 
poet.  "Paris  demands  Bab}*  Ionian  splendor.  Some- 
times I  ask  myself  how  I  have  ever  managed  to  keep 
it  up." 

"  The  king  does  that  for  both  of  us,"  said  the  duke, 
candidly;  u  we  live  on  his  Majesty's  bounty.  If  my 
family  had  not  been  allowed,  after  the  death  of  Monsieur 


i 


Modeste   Mignon.  299 

le  Grand,  as  they  called  Cinq-Mars,  to  keep  his  office 
among  us,  we  should  have  been  obliged  to  sell  Herou-       u 
ville  to  the  Black  Brethren.     Ah,  believe  me,  made-     \ 
moiselle,  it  is  a  bitter  humiliation  to  me  to  have  to  think     Vv-  , 
of  money  in  marrying." 

The  simple  honesty  of  this  confession  came  from  his 
heart,  and  the  regret  was  so  sincere  that  i,t  touched 
Modeste. 

"  In  these  days,"  said  the  poet,  "  no  man  in  France, 
Monsieur  le  due,  is  rich  enough  to  marry  a  woman  for 
herself,  her  personal  worth,  her  grace,  or  her  beauty — " 

The  colonel  looked  at  Canalis  with  a  curious  eye,  after 
first  watching  Modeste,  whose  face  no  longer  expressed 
the  slightest  astonishment. 

"For  persons  of  high  honor,"  he  said  slowly,  u  it 
is  a  noble  employment  of  wealth  to  repair  the  ravages 
of  time  and  destiny,  and  restore  the  old  historic 
families." 

w  Yes,  papa,"  said  Modeste,  gravely. 

The  colonel  invited  the  duke  and  Canalis  to  dine  with 
him  sociably  in  their  riding-dress,  promising  them  to 
make  no  change  himself.  When  Modeste  went  to  her 
room  to  make  her  toilette,  she  looked  at  the  jewelled 
whip  she  had  disdained  in  the  morning. 

"  What  workmanship  they  put  into  such  things  nowa- 
days !  "  she  said  to  Franchise  Cochet,  who  had  become 
her  waiting-maid. 

"  That  poor  young  man,  mademoiselle,  who  has  got 
a  fever  —  " 

"Who  told  you  that?" 

11  Monsieur  Butscha.  He  came  here  this  afternoon 
and   asked   me   to   say   to    you    that    he    hoped   you 


300  Modeste   Mignon. 

would  notice  he  had  kept  his  word  on  the  appointed 
day." 

Modeste  came  down  into  the  salon  dressed  with  royal 
simplicity. 

44  My  dear  father,"  she  said  aloud,  taking  the  colonel 
by  the  arm,  "  please  go  and  ask  after  Monsieur  de  La 
Briere's  health,  and  take  him  back  his  present.  You 
can  say  that  my  small  means,  as  well  as  my  natural 
tastes,  forbid  my  wearing  ornaments  which  are  only 
suitable  for  queens  or  courtesans.  Besides,  I  can  only 
accept  gifts  from  a  bridegroom.  Beg  him  to  keep  the 
whip  until  }tou  know  whether  you  are  rich  enough  to 
buy  it  back." 

"  My_ little  girl  has  plenty  of  good  sense,"  said  the 
colonel,  kissing  his  daughter  on  the  forehead. 

Canalis  took  advantage  of  a  conversation  which  be- 
gan between  the  duke  and  Madame  Mignon  to  escape 
to  the  terrace,  where  Modeste  joined  him,  influenced  by 
curiosity,  though  the  poet  believed  her  desire  to  become 
Madame  de  Canalis  had  brought  her  there.  Rather 
alarmed  at  the  indecency  with  which  he  had  just  exe- 
cuted what  soldiers  call  a  volte-face,  and  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  laws  of  ambition,  every  man  in  his  position 
would  have  executed  quite  as  brutally,  he  now  endeav- 
ored, as  the  unfortunate  Modeste  approached  him,  to 
find  plausible  excuses  for  his  conduct. 

"  Dear  Modeste,"  he  began,  in  a  coaxing  tone,  " 
sidering  the  terms  on  which  we  stand  to  each  otb 
shall  I  displease  you  if  I  say  that  your  replies  to  the 
Due  d'Herouville  were  very  painful  to  a  man  in  love,  — 
above  all,  to  a  poet  whose  soul  is  feminine,  nervous,  full 
of  the  jealousies  of  true  passion.     I  should  make  a  poor 


Modeste  Mignon.  301 

diplomatist  indeed  if  I  had  not  perceived  that  your 
first  coquetries,  }rour  little  premeditated  inconsistencies, 
were  only  assumed  for  the  purpose  of  studying  our 
characters  —  " 

Modeste  raised  her  head  with  the  rapid,  intelligent, 
half-coquettish  motion  of  a  wild  animal,  in  whom  in- 
stinct produces  such  miracles  of  grace. 

"  —  and  therefore  when  I  returned  home  and  thought 
them  over,  they  never  misled  me.  I  only  marvelled  at 
a  cleverness  so  in  harmony  with  your  character  and 
your  countenance.  Do  not  be  uneasy,  I  never  doubted 
that  your  assumed  duplicity  covered  an  angelic  candor. 
No,  your  mind,  your  education,  have  in  no  way  lessened 
the  precious  innocence  which  we  demand  in  a  wife.  You 
are  indeed  a  wife  for  a  poet,  a  diplomatist,  a  thinker,  a 
man  destined  to  endure  the  chances  and  changes  of 
life  ;  and  my  admiration  is  equalled  only  by  the  attach- 
ment I  feel  to  you.  I  now  entreat  you  —  if  yesterday 
you  were  not  playing  a  little  comedy  when  you  accepted 
the  love  of  a  man  whose  vanity  will  change  to  pride  if 
you  accept  him,  one  whose  defects  will  become  virtues 
under  your  divine  influence  —  I  entreat  you  do  not  ex- 
cite a  passion  which,  in  him,  amounts  to  vice.  Jeal- 
ousy is  a  noxious  element  in  my  soul,  and  you  have 
revealed  to  me  its  strength ;  it  is  awful,  it  destroys 
everything  —  Oh !  I  do  not  mean  the  jealousy  of 
an  Othello,"  he  continued,  noticing  Modeste's  gesture. 
"  No,  no  ;  my  thoughts  were  of  myself:  I  have  been  so 
indulged  on  that  point.  You  know  the  affection  to 
which  I  owe  all  the  happiness  I  have  ever  enjoyed, 
—  very  little  at  the  best  [he  sadly  shook  his  head] . 
Love    is   s}Tmbolized    among   all    nations   as   a    child, 


302  Modeste    Mignon. 

because  it  fancies  the  world  belongs  to  it,  and  it  cannot 
conceive  otherwise.  Well,  Nature  herself  set  the  limit 
to  that  sentiment.  It  was  still-born.  A  tender,  mater- 
nal soul  guessed  and  calmed  the  painful  constriction  of 
my  heart,  — for  a  woman  who  feels,  who  knows,  that  she 
is  past  the  joys  of  love  becomes  angelic  in  her  treat- 
ment of  others.  The  duchess  has  never  made  me  suffer 
in  my  sensibilities.  For  ten  years  not  a  word,  not  a 
look,  that  could  wound  me !  I  attach  more  value  to 
words,  to  thoughts,  to  looks,  than  ordinary  men.  If  a 
look  is  to  me  a  treasure  beyond  all  price,  the  slightest 
doubt  is  deadly  poison  ;  it  acts  instantaneously,  my  love 
dies.  I  believe — contrary  to  the  mass  of  men,  who 
delight  in  trembling,  hoping,  expecting  —  that  love  can 
only  exist  in  perfect,  infantile,  and  infinite  security. 
The  exquisite  purgatory,  where  women  delight  to  send 
us  by  their  coquetry,  is  a  base  happiness  to  which  I  will 
not  submit :  to  me,  love  is  either  heaven  or  hell.  If  it 
is  hell,  I  will  have  none  of  it.  I  feel  an  affinity  with  the 
azure  skies  of  Paradise  within  my  soul.  I  can  give  my- 
self without  reserve,  without  secrets,  doubts  or  decep- 
tions, in  the  life  to  come ;  and  I  demand  reciprocity. 
Perhaps  I  offend  you  by  these  doubts.  Eemember, 
however,  that  I  am  only  talking  of  nr^self — " 

"  — a  good  deal,  but  never  too  much,"  said  Modeste, 
offended  in  every  hole  and  corner  of  her  pride  by  this 
discourse,  in  which  the  Duchesse  de  Chaulieu  served  as 
a  dagger.  "I  am  so  accustomed  to  admire  you,  my 
dear  poet." 

"  Well  then,  can  you  promise  me  the  same  canine 
fidelity  which  I  offer  to  you?  Is  it  not  beautiful?  Is 
it  not  just  what  you  have  longed  for?" 


Modeste   Mignon.  303 

"But  why,  dear  poet,  do  you  not  marry  a  deaf- 
mute,  and  one  who  is  also  something  of  an  idiot  ?  I  ask 
nothing  better  than  to  please  my  husband.  But  you 
threaten  to  take  away  from  a  girl  the  very  happiness 
you  so  kindly  arrange  for  her ;  you  are  tearing  away 
every  gesture,  every  word,  every  look ;  }*ou  cut  the 
wings  of  your  bird,  and  then  expect  it  to  hover  about 
you.  I  know  poets  are  accused  of  inconsistency  —  oh  ! 
very  unjustly, "  she  added,  as  Canalis  made  a  gesture 
of  denial ;  "that  alleged  defect  comes  from  the  brilliant 
activity  of  their  minds  which  commonplace  people  can- 
not take  into  account.  I  do  not  believe,  however,  that 
a  man  of  genius  can  invent  such  irreconcilable  con- 
ditio! s  and  call  his  invention  life.  You  are  requiring 
the  impossible  solely  for  the  pleasure  of  putting  me  in 
the  wrong,  —  like  the  enchanters  in  fairy-tales,  who  set 
tasks  to  persecuted  young  girls  whom  the  good  fairies 
come  and  deliver." 

44  In  this  case  the  good  fairy  would  be  true  love,"  said 
Canalis  in  a  curt  tone,  aware  that  his  elaborate  excuse 
for  a  rupture  was  seen  through  by  the  keen  and  delicate 
mind  which  Butscha  had  piloted  so  well. 

"  My  dear  poet,  you  remind  me  of  those  fathers  who 
inquire  into  a  girl's  dot  before  they  are  willing  to  name 
that  of  their  son.  You  are  quarrelling  with  me  without 
knowing  whether  you  have  the  slightest  right  to  do  so. 
Love  is  not  gained  by  such  dry  arguments  as  yours. 
The  poor  duke  on  the  contrary  abandons  himself  to  it 
like  my  Uncle  Toby  ;  with  this  difference,  that  I  am  not 
the  Widow  Wadman,  —  though  widow  indeed  of  many 
illusions  as  to  poetry  at  the  present  moment.  Ah,  yes, 
we  young  girls  will  not  believe  in  anything  that  disturbs 


301  Modeste    Mignon. 

our  world  of  fancy !  I  was  warned  of  all  this  before- 
hand. My  dear  poet,  3'ou  are  attempting  to  get  up  a 
quarrel  which  is  unworthy  of  you.  I  no  longer  recog- 
nize the  Melchior  of  }^esterday." 

u  Because  Melchior  has  discovered  a  spirit  of  ambi- 
tion in  you  which  —  " 

Modeste  looked  at  him  from  head  to  foot  with  an  im- 
perial eye. 

"  But  I  shall  be  peer  of  France  and  ambassador  as 
well  as  he,"  added  Canalis. 

"  You  take  me  for  a  bourgeoise,"  she  said,  beginning 
to  mount  the  steps  of  the  portico ;  but  she  instantly 
turned  back  and  added,  "  That  is  less  impertinent  than 
to  take  me  for  a  fool.  The  change  in  your  conduct  comes 
from  certain  silly  rumors  which  you  have  heard  in  Havre, 
and  which  my  maid  Franchise  has  repeated  to  me." 

"Ah,  Modeste  !  how  can  you  think  it?  "  said  Canalis, 
striking  a  dramatic  attitude.  "  Do  3-ou  think  me  ca- 
pable of  marrying  you  only  for  your  money?  " 

"If  I  do  yo\\  that  wrong  after  your  edifying  remarks 
on  the  banks  of  the  Seine  you  can  easily  undeceive  me," 
she  said,  annihilating  him  with  her  scorn. 

"  Ah  !  "  thought  the  poet,  as  he  followed  her  into  the 
house,  "if  you  think,  my  little  girl,  that  I'm  to  be 
caught  in  that  net,  you  take  me  to  be  younger  than  I 
am.  Dear,  dear,  what  a  fuss  about  an  artful  little 
thing  whose  esteem  I  value  about  as  much  as  that  of 
the  king  of  Borneo.  But  she  has  given  me  a  good 
reason  for  the  rupture  by  accusing  me  of  such  un- 
worthy sentiments.  Is  n't  she  sly?  La  Briere  will  get 
a  burden  on  his  back  —  idiot  that  he  is  !  And  live  years 
hence  it  will  be  a  good  joke  to  see  them  together." 


Modeste    Mignon.  305        i 


The  coldness  which  this  altercation  produced  between 
Modeste  and  Canalis  was  visible  to  all  eyes  that  even- 
ing. The  poet  went  off  early,  on  the  ground  of  La 
Briere's  illness,  leaving  the  field  to  the  grand  equerry. 
About  eleven  o'clock  Butscha,  who  had  come  to  walk 
home  with  Madame  Latournelle,  whispered  in  Modeste's 
ear,  "  Was  I  right?  "  , 

"  Alas,  yes,"  she  said.  ^^ 

"But  I  hope  you  have  left  the  door  half  open,  so 
that  he  can  come  back ;  we  agreed  upon  that,  you 
know. ' 

4 ■  Anger  got  the  better  of  me,"  said  Modeste.  "  Such 
meanness  sent  the  blood  to  my  head  and  I  told  him  what 
I  thought  of  him." 

u  Well,  so  much  the  better.  When  you  are  both  so 
angry  that  you  can't  speak  civilly  to  each  other  I  en- 
gage to  make  him  desperately  in  love  and  so  pressing 
that  you  will  be  deceived  yourself." 

"  Come,  come,  Butscha  ;  he  is  a  great  poet ;  he  is  a 
gentleman  ;  he  is  a  man  of  intellect." 

'  •  Your  father's  eight  millions  are  more  to  him  than 
all  that." 

"  Eight  millions  !  "  exclaimed  Modeste. 

"  My  master,  who  has  sold  his  practice,  is  going  to 
Provence  to  attend  to  the  purchase  of  lands  which  your 
father's  agent  has  suggested  to  him.  The  sum  that  is 
to  be  paid  for  the  estate  of  La  Bastie  is  four  millions  ; 
your  father  has  agreed  to  it.  You  are  to  have  a  dot  of 
two  millions  and  another  million  for  an  establishment  in 
Paris,  a  hotel  and  furniture.     Now,  count  up." 

"  Ah  !  then  I  can  be  Duchesse  d'Herouville  !  "  cried 
Modeste,  glancing  at  Butscha. 

20 


v 


306  Modeste   Mignon. 

"If  it  hadn't  been  for  that  comedian  of  a  Canalis 
3Tou  would  have  kept  his  whip,  thinking  it  came  from 
me,"  said  the  dwarf,  indirectly  pleading  La  Briere's 
cause. 

"  Monsieur  Butscha,  may  I  ask  if  I  am  to  marry  to 
please  you  ?  "  said  Modeste,  laughing. 

"That  fine  fellow  loves  you  as  well  as  I  do,  — and 
you  loved  him  for  eight  days,"  retorted  Butscha ;  "  and 
he  has  got  a  heart." 

"  Can  he  compete,  pray,  with  an  office  under  the 
Crown?  There  are  but  six,  grand  almoner,  chancel- 
lor, grand  chamberlain,  grand  master,  high  constable, 
grand  admiral,  —  but  they  don't  appoint  high  constables 
any  longer." 

4 'In  six  months,  mademoiselle  the  masses  —  who 
are  made  up  of  wicked  Butschas  —  could  send  all  those 
grand  dignities  to  the  winds.  Besides,  what  signifies 
nobility  in  these  days  ?  There  are  not  a  thousand  real 
noblemen  in  France.  The  d'Herouvilles  are  descended 
from  a  tipstaff  in  the  time  of  Robert  of  Normandy. 
You  will  have  to  put  up  with  many  a  vexation  from 
that  old  aunt  with  the  furrowed  face.  Look  here,  —  as 
you  are  so  anxious  for  the  title  of  duchess,  — you  be- 
long to  the  Comtat,  and  the  Pope  will  certainly  think  as 
/much  of  you  as  he  does  of  all  those  merchants  down 
/  there ;  he  '11  sell  you  a  duchy  with  some  name  ending 
/  in  ia  or  agno.  Don't  play  away  your  happiness  for  an 
1/     office  under  the  CrownT5 


Modeste   Mignon.  307 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

A   DIPLOMATIC    LETTER. 

The  poet's  reflections  during  the  night  were  thor- 
oughly matter-of-fact.  He  sincerely  saw  nothing  worse 
in  lifejthan  the  situation  of  a  married  man  without 
mone^i---- Still  trembling  at  the  danger  he  had  been  led 
into  by  his  vanity,  his  desire  to  get  the  better  of  the 
duke,  and  his  belief  in  the  Mignon  millions,  he  began 
to  ask  himself  what  the  duchess  must  be  thinking  of  his 
stay  in  Havre,  aggravated  by  the  fact  that  he  had  not 
written  to  her  for  fourteen  days,  whereas  in  Paris  they 
exchanged  four  or  five  letters  a  week. 

"  And  that  poor  woman  is  working  hard  to  get  me 
appointed  commander  of  the  Legion  and  ambassador  to 
the  Court  of  Baden  !  "  he  cried. 

Thereupon,  with  that  promptitude  of  decision  which 
results  —  in  poets  as  well  as  in  speculators  —  from  a 
lively  intuition  of  the  future,  he  sat  down  and  composed 
the  following  letter :  — 

To  Madame  la  Duchesse  de  Chaulieu : 
My  dear  Eleonore,  —  You  have  doubtless  been  sur- 
prised at  not  hearing  from  me ;  but  the  stay  I  am 
making  in  this  place  is  not  altogether  on  account  of 
my  health.  I  have  been  trying  to  do  a  good  turn  to 
our  little  friend  La  Briere.     The  poor  fellow  has  fallen 


308  Modeste   Mignon. 

in  love  with  a  certain  Mademoiselle  Modeste  de  La 
Bastie,  a  rather  pale,  insignificant,  and  thread-papery 
little  thing,  who,  by  the  way,  has  the  vice  of  liking 
literature,  and  calls  herself  a  poet  to  excuse  the  ca- 
prices and  humors  of  a  rather  sullen  nature.  You 
Snow  Ernest,  —  he  is  so  easy  to  catch  that  I  have  been 
afraid  to  leave  him  to  himself.  Mademoiselle  de  La 
Bastie  was  inclined  to  coquet  with  your  Melchior,  and 
was  only  too  ready  to  become  }<our  rival,  though  her 
arms  are  thin,  and  she  has  no  more  bust  than  most 
girls;  moreover,  her  hair  is  as  dead  and  colorless  as 
that  of  Madame  de  Roche  fide,  and  her  eyes  small,  gray, 
and  very  suspicious.  I  put  a  stop  —  perhaps  rather  bru- 
tally —  to  the  attentions  of  Mademoiselle  Immodcste  ; 
but  love,  such  as  mine  for  you,  demanded  it.  What 
care  I  for  all  the  women  on  earth,  —  compared  to  you, 
\what  are  they? 

The  people  with  whom  I  pass  my  time,  and  who  form 
the  circle  round  the  heiress,  are  so  thoroughly  bojrrgeo[s 
that  they  almost  turn  my  stomach.  Pity  me  ;  imagine  ! 
I  pass  my  evenings  with  notaries,  notaresses,  cashiers, 
provincial  money-lenders  —  ah  !  what  a  change  from  my 
evenings  in  the  rue  de  Grenelle.  The  alleged  fortune 
of  the  father,  lately  returned  from  China,  has  brought 
to  Havre  that  indefatigable  suitor,  the  grand  equerry, 
hungry  after  the  millions,  which  he  wants,  they  say,  to 
drain  his  marshes.  The  king  does  not  know  what  a 
fatal  present  he  made  the  duke  in  those  waste  lands. 
His  Grace,  who  has  not  yet  found  out  that  the  lady  has 
only  a  small  fortune,  is  jealous  of  me ;  for  La  Briere  is 
quietly  making  progress  with  his  idol  under  cover  of  his 
friend,  who  serves  as  a  blind. 


Modeste   Mignon.  309 

Notwithstanding  Ernest's  romantic  ecstasies,  I  my- 
self, a  poet,  think  chiefly  of  the  essential  thing,  and  I 
have  been  making  some  inquiries  which  darken  the 
prospects  of  our  friend.  If  my  angel  would  like  abso- 
lution for  some  of  our  little  sins,  will  she  try  to  find  out 
the  facts  of  the  case  by  sending  for  Mongenod,  the 
banker,  anc1  questioning  him,  with  the  dexterity  that 
characterizes  her,  as  to  the  father's  fortune  ?  Monsieur 
Mignon,  formerly  colonel  of  cavalry  in  the  Imperial 
guard,  has  been  for  the  last  seven  years  a  correspon- 
dent of  the  Mongenods.  It  is  said  that  he  gives  his 
daughter  a  dot  of  two  hundred  thousand  francs,  and 
before  I  make  the  offer  on  Ernest's  behalf  I  am  anxious 
to  get  the  rights  of  the  story.  As  soon  as  the  affair  is 
arranged  I  shall  return  to  Paris.  I  know  a  way  to 
settle  everything  to  the  advantage  of  our  young  lover,  — 
simply  by  the  transmission  of  the  father-in-law's  title, 
and  no  one,  I  think,  can  more  readily  obtain  that  favor 
than  Ernest,  both  on  account  of  his  own  services  and 
the  influence  which  you  and  I  and  the  duke  can  exert 
for  him.  With  his  tastes,  Ernest,  who  of  course  will 
step  into  my  office  when  I  go  to  Baden,  will  be  perfectly 
happy  in  Paris  with  twenty-five  thousand  francs  a  year, 
a  permanent  place,  and  a  wife  —  luckless  fellow ! 

Ah,  dearest,  how  I  long  for  the  rue  de  Grenelle ! 
Fifteen  days  of  absence !  when  they  do  not  kill  love,  \ 
they  revive  all  the  ardor  of  its  earlier  days,  and  }rou 
know,  better  than  I,  perhaps,  the  reasons  that  make  my  \^ 
love  eternal,  —  my  bones  will  love  thee  in  the  grave ! 
Ah !  I  cannot  bear  this  separation.  If  I  am  forced  to 
stay  here  another  ten  days,  I  shall  make  a  flying  visit 
of  a  few  hours  to  Paris. 


310  Modeste    Mignon. 

Has  the  duke  obtained  for  me  the  thing  we  wanted  ; 
and  shall  you,  my  dearest  life,  be  ordered  to  drink 
the  Baden  waters  next  year?  The  billing  and  cooing 
of  the  "  handsome  disconsolate,"  compared  with  the  ac- 
cents of  our  happy  love  —  so  true  and  changeless  for 
now  ten  years  !  —  have  given  me  a  great  contempt  for 
marriage.  I  had  never  seen  the  thing  so  near.  Ah, 
dearest !  what  the  world  calls  a  "  false  step  "  brings  two 
beings  nearer  together  than  the  law  —  does  it  not  ? 

The  concluding  idea  served  as  a  text  for  two  pages 
of  reminiscences  and  aspirations  a  little  too  confidential 
for  publication. 

The  evening  before  the  day  on  which  Canalis  put 
the  above  epistle  into  the  post,  Butscha,  under  the 
name  of  Jean  Jacmin,  had  received  a  letter  from  his 
fictitious  cousin,  Philoxene,  and  had  mailed  his  answer, 
which  thus  preceded  the  letter  of  the  poet  by  about 
twelve  hours.  Terribly  anxious  for  the  last  two  weeks, 
and  wounded  by  Melchior's  silence,  the  duchess  herself 
dictated  Philoxene's  letter  to  her  cousin,  and  the  mo- 
ment she  had  read  the  answer,  rather  too  explicit  for 
her  quinquagenary  vanity,  she  sent  for  the  banker  and 
made  close  inquiries  as  to  the  exact  fortune  of  Mon- 
sieur Mignon.  Finding  herself  betrayed  and  aban- 
doned for  the  millions,  Eleonore  gave  way  to  a  paroxysm 
of  anger,  hatred,  and  cold  vindictiveness.  Philoxene 
knocked  at  the  door  of  the  sumptuous  room,  and  en- 
tering found  her  mistress  with  her  eyes  full  of  tears,  — 
so  unprecedented  a  phenomenon  in  the  fifteen  years  she 
had  waited  upon  her  that  the  woman  stopped  short 
stupefied 


Modeste    Mignon.  311 

"  We  expiate  the  happiness  of  ten  years  in  ten  min- 
utes, "  she  heard  the  duchess  say. 

"  A  letter  from  Havre,  madame." 

Eleonore  read  the  poet's  prose  without  noticing  the 
presence  of  Philoxene,  whose  amazement  became  still 
greater  when  she  saw  the  dawn  of  fresh  serenity  on  the 
duchess's  face  as  she  read  further  and  further  into  the 
letter.  Hold  out  a  pole  no  thicker  than  a  walking-stick 
to  a  drowning  man,  and  he  will  think  it  a  high-road  of 
safety.  The  happy  Eleonore  believed  in  Canalis's  good 
faith  when  she  had  read  through  the  four  pages  in 
which  Jove  and  business,  falsehood  and  truth,  jostled 
each  other.  She  who,  a  few  moments  earlier,  had  sent 
for  her  husband  to  prevent  Melchior's  appointment 
while  there  was  still  time,  was  now  seized  with  a  spirit 
of  generosity  that  amounted  almost  to  the  sublime. 

"  Poor  fellow  !  "  she  thought ;  "  he  has  not  had  one 
faithless  thought ;  he  loves  me  as  he  did  on  the  first 
day  ;  he  tells  me  all —  Philoxene  !  "  she  cried,  noticing/ 
her  maid,  who  was  standing  near  and  pretending  to 
arrange  the  toilet- table. 

fct  Madame  la  duchesse?" 

"  A  mirror,  child!  " 

Eleonore  looked  at  herself,  saw  the  fine  razor-like 
lines  traced  on  her  brow,  which  disappeared  at  a  little 
distance ;  she  sighed,  and  in  that  sigh  she  felt  she  bade 
adieu  to  love.  A  brave  thought  came  into  her  mind,  a 
manly  thought,  outside  of  all  the  pettiness  of  women,  — 
a  thought  which  intoxicates  for  a  moment,  and  which 
explains,  perhaps,  the  clemency  of  the  Semiramis  of 
Russia  when  she  married  her  young  and  beautiful  rival 
to  Momonoff. 


312  Modeste   Mignon. 

"  Since  he  has  not  been  faithless,  he  shall  have 
girl  and  her  millions,"  she  thought,  —  "  provided  Made- 
moiselle Mignon  is  as  ugly  as  he  says  she  is." 

Three  raps,  circumspectly  given,  announced  the  duke, 
and  his  wife  went  herself  to  the  door  to  let  him  in. 

"  Ah  !  I  see  you  are  better,  my  dear,"  he  cried,  with 
the  counterfeit  joy  that  courtiers  assume  so  easily,  and 
by  which  fools  are  so  readily  taken  in. 

"My  dear  Henri,"  she  answered,  "  why  is  it  jtou 
have  not  yet  obtained  that  appointment  for  Melchior, 
—  you  who  sacrificed  so  much  to  the  king  in  taking  a 
ministr}T  which  you  knew  could  only  last  one  3'ear." 

The  duke  glanced  at  Philoxene,  who  showed  him  by 
an  almost  imperceptible  sign  the  letter  from  Havre  on 
the  dressing-table. 

u  You  would  be  terribly  bored  at  Baden  and  come 
back  at  daggers  drawn  with  Melchior,"  said  the  duke. 

"Pray  why?" 

"  Why,  you  would  always  be  together,"  said  the 
former  diplomat,  with  comic  good-humor. 

"  Oh,  no,"  she  said  ;  "  I  am  going  to  marry  him." 

u  If  we  can  believe  d'Herouville,  our  dear  Canalis 
stands  in  no  need  of  your  help  in  that  direction,"  said 
the  duke,  smiling.  "  Yesterda}7  Grandlieu  read  me 
some  passages  from  a  letter  the  grand  equerry  had 
written  him.  No  doubt  they  were  dictated  by  the  aunt 
for  the  express  purpose  of  their  reaching  you,  for 
Mademoiselle  d'Herouville,  alwaj's  on  the  scent  of  a 
dot,  knows  that  Grandlieu  and  I  play  whist  nearly  every 
evening.  That  good  little  d'Herouville  wants  the  Prince 
de  Cadignan  to  go  down  and  give  a  royal  hunt  in  Nor- 
mandy, and  endeavor  to  persuade  the  king  to  be  pres- 


•  Modeste   Mignon.  313 

ent,  so  as  to  turn  the  head  of  the  damozel  when  she 
sees  herself  the  object  of  such  a  grand  affair.  In  short, 
two  words  from  Charles  X.  would  settle  the  matter. 
d'Herouville  says  the  girl  has  incomparable  beauty  —  " 

"  Henri,  let  us  go  to  Havre !  "  cried  the  duchess, 
interrupting  him. 

"  Under  what  pretext?  "  said  her  husband,  gravely  ; 
he  was  one  of  the  confidants  of  Louis  XVIII. 

" 1  never  saw  a  hunt." 

"  It  would  be  all  very  well  if  the  king  went ;  but  it 
is  a  terrible  bore  to  go  so  far,  and  he  will  not  do  it ;  I 
have  just  been  speaking  with  him  about  it." 

"  Perhaps  Madame  would  go?  " 

u  That  would  be  better,"  returned  the  duke,  "  I  dare 
sa}'  the  Duchesse  de  Maufrigneuse  would  help  you  to 
persuade  her  from  Rosny.  If  she  goes  the  king  will  not 
be  displeased  at  the  use  of  his  hunting  equipage.  Don't 
go  to  Havre,  my  dear,"  added  the  duke,  paternally, 
fc  •  that  would  be  giving  yourself  away.  Come,  here 's  a 
better  plan,  I  think.  Gaspard's  chateau  of  Rosembray 
is  on  the  other  side  of  the  forest  of  Brotonne  ;  why  not 
give  him  a  hint  to  invite  the  whole  party  ?  " 

"  He  invite  them?  "  said  Eleonore. 

u  I  mean,  of  course,  the  duchess ;  she  is  alwa}rs 
engaged  in  pious  works  with  Mademoiselle  d'Herouville  ; 
give  that  old  maid  a  hint,  and  get  her  to  speak  to 
Gaspard." 

"  You  are  a  love  of  a  man,"  cried  Eleonore ;  "  I  '11 
write  to  the  old  maid  and  to  Diane  at  once,  for  we 
must  get  hunting  things  made,  —  a  riding  hat  is  so 
becoming.  Did  you  win  last  night  at  the  English 
embassy  ?  " 


314  Modeste    Mignon. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  duke  ;  "  I  cleared  myself." 
"Henri,   above  all   things,   stop  proceedings   about 
Melehior's  two  appointments." 

After  writing  half  a  dozen  lines  to  the  beautiful 
Diane  de  Maufrigneuse,  and  a  short  hint  to  Mademoi- 
selle d'Herouville,  Eleonore  sent  the  following  answer 
like  the  lash  of  a  whip  through  the  poet's  lies. 

To  Monsieur  le  Baron  de  Canalis :  — 

My  dear  poet,  —  Mademoiselle  de  La  Bastie  is  very 
beautiful ;  Mongenod  has  proved  to  me  that  her  father 
has  millions.  I  did  think  of  marrying  you  to  her ;  I  am 
therefore  much  displeased  at  your  want  of  confidence. 
If  you  had  any  intention  of  marrying  La  Briere  when 
you  went  to  Havre  it  is  surprising  that  you  said  noth- 
ing to  me  about  it  before  you  started.  And  why  have 
you  omitted  writing  to  a  friend  who  is  so  easity  made 
anxious  as  I  ?  Your  letter  arrived  a  trifle  late  ;  I  had 
already  seen  the  banker.  You  are  a  child,  Melchior, 
and  you  are  playing  tricks  with  us.  It  is  not  right. 
The  duke  himself  is  quite  indignant  at  your  proceed- 
ings ;  he  thinks  you  less  than  a  gentleman,  which  casts 
some  reflection  on  }'our  mother's  honor. 

Now,  I  intend  to  see  things  for  myself.  I  shall,  I 
believe,  have  the  honor  of  accompanying  Madame  to 
the  hunt  which  the  Due  d'Herouville  proposes  to  give 
for  Mademoiselle  de  La  Bastie.  I  will  manage  to  have 
you  invited  to  Rosembray,  for  the  meet  will  probably 
take  place  in  Due  de  Verneuil's  park. 

Pray  believe,  my  dear  poet,  that  I  am  none  the  less, 
for  life, 

Your  friend,  Eleonore  de  M. 


Modeste   Mignon.  315 

"  There,  Ernest,  just  look  at  that ! "  cried  Canalis, 
tossing  the  letter  at  Ernest's  nose  across  the  breakfast- 
table  ;  "  that's  the  two  thousandth  love-letter  I  have 
have  had  from  that  woman,  and  there  is  n't  even  a 
4  thou '  in  it.  The  illustrious  Eleonore  has  never  com- 
promised herself  more  than  she  does  there.  Marry, 
and  try  your  luck!  The  worst  marriage  in  >  the  world 
is  better  than  this  sort  of  halter.  Ah,  I  am  the  great- 
est Nicodemus  that  ever  tumbled  out  of  the  moon  ! 
Modeste  has  millions,  and  I  've  lost  her ;  for  we  can't 
get  back  from  the  poles,  where  we  are  to-day,  to  the 
tropics,  where  we  were  three  days  ago!  Well,  I  am 
all  the  more  anxious  for  your  triumph  over  the  grand 
equerry,  because  I  told  the  duchess  I  came  here  only 
for  your  sake  ;  and  so  I  shall  do  my  best  for  you." 

"  Alas,  Melchior,  Modeste  must  needs  have  so  no- 
ble, so  grand,  so  well-balanced  a  nature  to  resist  the 
glories  of  the  Court,  and  all  these  splendors  cleverly 
displayed  for  her  honor  and  glory  by  the  duke,  that  I 
cannot  believe  in  the  existence  of  such  perfection,  — 
and  yet,  if  she  is  still  the  Modeste  of  her  letters,  there 
might  be  hope  !  " 

"  Well,  well,  you  are  a  happy  fellow,  you  young 
Boniface,  to  see  the  world  and  your  mistress  through 
green  spectacles ! "  cried  Canalis,  marching  off  to  pace 
up  and  down  the  garden. 

Caught  between  two  lies,  the  poet  was  at  a  loss  what 
to  do. 

"Play  by  rule,  and  you  lose!"  he  cried  presently, 
sitting  down  in  the  kiosk.  "  Every  man  of  sense 
would  have  acted  as  I  did  four  days  ago,  and  got  him- 
self out  of  the  net  in  which  I  saw  myself.     At  such 


316 


Modeste   Mignon. 


times  people  don't  disentangle  nets,  they  break  through 
them  !  Come,  let  us  be  calm,  cold,  dignified,  affronted. 
Honor  requires  it ;  English  stiffness  is  the  only  way  to 
win  her  back.  After  all,  if  I  have  to  retire  finally,  I 
can  alwa3^s  fall  back  on  my  old  happiness ;  a  fidelity  of 
ten  years  can't  go  unrewarded.  Eleonore  will  arrange 
me  some  good  marriage." 


Modeste   Mignon.  317 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

TRUE   LOVE. 

The  hunt  was  destined  to  be  not  only  a  meet  of  the 
hounds,  but  a  meeting  of  all  the  passions  excited 
bv_Jhejcolo^eXs_^nUlions  and  Modeste's  beauty ;  and 
while  it  was  in  prospect  there  was  truce  between  the 
adversaries.  During  the  da}Ts  required  for  the  arrange- 
ment of  this  forestrial  solemnity,  the  salon  of  the  villa 
Mignon  presented  the  tranquil  picture  of  a  united  fam- 
ily. Canalis,  cut  short  in  his  role  of  injured  love  by 
Modeste's  quick  perceptions,  wished  to  appear  cour- 
teous ;  he  laid  aside  his  pretensions,  gave  no  further 
specimens  of  his  oratory,  and  became,  what  all  men  of 
intellect  can  be  when  they  renounce  affectation,  per- 
fectly charming.  He  talked  finances  with  Gobenheim, 
and  war  with  the  colonel,  Germany  with  Madame  Mig- 
non, and  housekeeping  with  Madame  Latournelle,  — 
endeavoring  to  bias  them  all  in  favor  of  La  Brie  re. 
The  Due  d'Herouville  left  the  field  to  his  rivals,  for  he 
was  obliged  to  go  to  Rosembray  to  consult  with  the 
Due  de  Verneuil,  and  see  that  the  orders  of  the  Royal 
Huntsman,  the  Prince  de  Cadignan,  were  carried  out. 
And  yet  the  comic  element  was  not  altogether  wanting. 
Modeste  found  herself  between  the  depreciatory  hints 
of  Canalis  as  to  the  gallantry  of  the  grand  equerry, 
and    the    exaggerations   of   the    two    Mesdemoiselles 


318  Modeste   Mignon. 

d'Herouville,  who  passed  every  evening  at  the  villa. 
Canalis  made  Modeste  take  notice  that,  instead  of  being 
the  heroine  of  the  hunt,  she  would  be  scarcely  noticed. 
Madame  would  be  attended  by  the  Duchesse  de  Mau- 
frigneuse,  daughter-in-law  of  the  Prince  de  Cadignan, 
hy  the  Duchesse  de  Chaulieu,  and  other  great  ladies  of 
the  Court,  among  whom  she  could  produce~TncT~sensa- 
tion  ;  no  doubt  the  officers  in  garrison  at  Rouen  would 
be  invited,  etc.  Helene,  on  the  other  hand,  was  inces- 
santly telling  her  new  friend,  whom  she  alread}r  looked 
upon  as  a  sister-in-law,  that  she  was  to  be  presented 
to  Madame  ;  undoubtedly  the  Due  de  Verneuil  would 
invite  her  father  and  herself  to  stay  at  Rosembra}7 ;  if 
the  colonel  wished  to  obtain  a  favor  of  the  king,  —  a 
peerage,  for  instance,  —  the  opportunity  was  unique, 
for  there  was  hope  of  the  king  himself  being  present 
on  the  third  day ;  she  would  be  delighted  with  the 
charming  welcome  with  which  the  beauties  of  the 
Court,  the  Duchesses  de  Chaulieu,  de  Maufrigneuse, 
de  Lenoncourt-Chaulieu,  and  other  ladies,  were  pre- 
pared to  meet  her.  It  was  in  fact  an  excessively  amus- 
ing little  warfare,  with  its  marches  and  countermarches 
and  stratagems,  —  all  of  which  were  keenly  enjoyed  by 
the  Dumays,  the  Latournelles,  Gobenheim,  and  Butscha, 
who,  in  conclave  assembled,  said  horrible  things  of  these 
noble  personages,  cruelly  noting  and  intelligently  study- 
ing all  their  little  meannesses. 

The  promises  on  the  d'Herouville  side  were,  however, 
confirmed  by  the  arrival  of  an  invitation,  couched  in 
flattering  terms,  from  the  Due  de  Verneuil  and  the  Mas- 
ter of  the  Hunt  to  Monsieur  le  Comte  de  La  Bastie  and 
his  daughter,  to  stay  at  Rosembray  and  be  present  at  a 


Modeste   Mignon.  319 

grand  hunt  on  the  seventh,  eighth,  ninth,  and  tenth,  of 
November  following. 

La  Briere,  full  of  dark  presentiments,  craved  the 
presence  of  Modeste  with  an  eagerness  whose  bitter  joys 
are  known  only  to  lovers  who  feel  that  they  are  parted, 
and  parted  fatally  from  those  they  love.  Flashes  of  joy 
came  to  him  intermingled  with  melancholy  meditations 
on  the  one  theme,  "  I  have  lost  her,"  and  made  him  all 
the  more  interesting  to  those  who  watched  him,  because 
his  face  and  his  whole  person  were  in  keeping  with  his 
profound  feeling.  There  is  nothing  more  poetic  than  a 
living  elegy,  animated  by  a  pair  of  eyes,  walking  about, 
and  sighing  without  rhymes. 

The  Due  d'Herouville  arrived  at  last  to  arrange  for 
Modeste's  departure  ;  after  crossing  the  Seine  she  was 
to  be  conveyed  in  the  duke's  caleche,  accompanied  b}r 
the  Demoiselles  d'Herouville.  The  duke  was  charmingly 
courteous;  he  begged  Canalis  and  La  Briere  to  be  of 
the  party,  assuring  them,  as  he  did  the  colonel,  that  he 
had  taken  particular  care  that  hunters  should  be  pro- 
vided for  them.  The  colonel  invited  the  three  lovers  to 
breakfast  on  the  morning  of  the  start.  Canalis  then  be- 
ganjto  put  into  execution  a  plan  that  he  hadjueen  matur- 
ing in  his  own  mind  for  the  last  few  daj's ;  namely,  to 
quietly  reconquer  Modeste,  and  throw  over  the  duchess, 
La  Briere,  and  the  duke.  A  graduate  of  diplomacy  could 
hardly  remain  stuck  in  the  position  in  which  he  found 
himself.  On  the  other  hand  La  Briere  had  come  to  the 
resolution  of  bidding  Modeste  an  eternal  farewell.  Each 
suitor  was  therefore  on  the  watch  to  slip  in  a  last  word, 
like  the  defendant's  counsel  to  the  court  before  judg- 
ment is  pronounced ;  for  all  felt  that  the  three  weeks' 


320  Modeste   Mignon. 

struggle  was  approaching  its  conclusion.  After  dinner 
on  the  evening  before  the  start  was  to  be  made,  the 
colonel  had  taken  his  daughter  by  the  arm  and  made 
her  feel  the  necessity  of  deciding. 

11  Our  position  with  the  d'Herouville  family  will  be 
quite  intolerable  at  Rosembray,"  he  said  to  her.  "  Do 
you  mean  to  be  a  duchess  ?  " 

"  No,  father,"  she  answered. 

"  Then  do  you  love  Canalis?" 

1 '  No,  papa,  a  thousand  times  no ! "  she  exclaimed 
with  the  impatience  of  a  child. 

The  colonel  looked  at  her  with  a  sort  of  joy. 

14  Ah,  I  have  not  influenced  you,"  cried  the  true  father, 
"  and  I  will  now  confess  that  I  chose  my  son-in-law  in 
Paris  when,  having  made  him  believe  that  I  had  but 
little  fortune,  he  grasped  my  hand  and  told  me  I  took 
a  weight  from  his  mind  —  " 

"  Who  is  it  you  mean  ?  "  asked  Modeste,  coloring. 

u  The  man  of  fixed  principles  and  sound  moral- 
ity "  said  her  father,  slyly,  repeating  the  words  which 
had  dissolved  poor  Modeste's  dream  on  the  day-  after 
his  return. 

"  I  was  not  even  thinking  of  him,  papa.  Please 
leave  me  at  liberty  to  refuse  the  duke  myself ;  I  under- 
stand him,  and  I  know  how  to  soothe  him." 

"  Then  your  choice  is  not  made?  " 

"  Not  yet;  there  is  another  syllable  or  two  in  the 
charade  of  my  destiny  still  to  be  guessed ;  but  after  I 
have  had  a  glimpse  of  court  life  at  Rosembray  I  will 
tell  you  my  secret." 

"  Ah  !  Monsieur  de  La  Briere,"  cried  the  colonel,  as 
the  young  man  approached  them  along  the  garden  path 


Modeste   Mignon.  321 

in  which  they  were  walking,  "  I  hope  you  are  going  to 
this  hunt?" 

"No,  colonel,"  answered  Ernest.  "I  have  come  to 
take  leave  of  you  and  of  mademoiselle ;  I  return  to 
Paris  —  " 

"  You  have  no  curiosity,"  said  Modeste,  interrupting, 
and  looking  at  him. 

UA  wish  —  that  I  cannot  expect — would  suffice  to 
keep  me,"  he  replied. 

"  If  that  is  all,  you  must  stay  to  please  me ;  I  wish 
it,"  said  the  colonel,  going  forward  to  meet  Canalis, 
and  leaving  his  daughter  and  La  Briere  together  for  a 
moment. 

"Mademoiselle,"  said  the  young  man,  raising  his 
eyes  to  hers  with  the  boldness  of  a  man  without  hope, 
"  I  have  an  entreaty  to  make  to  you." 

"Tome?" 

"  Let  me  carry  away  with  me  your  forgiveness.  My 
life  can  never  be  happy ;  it  must  be  full  of  remorse  for 
having  lost  my  happiness  —  no  doubt  by  my  own  fault ; 
but,  at  least  —  "  

"  Before  we  part  forever,"  said  Modeste,  interrupt- 
ing a  la  Canalis,  and  speaking  in  a  voice  of  some  emo- 
tion, "I  wish  to  ask  you  one  thing;  and  though  you 
once  disguised  yourself,  I  think  you  cannot  be  so  base 
as  to  deceive  me  now." 

The  taunt  made  him  turn  pale,  and  he  cried  out,  u  Oh, 
you  are  pitiless  !  " 

"  Will  you  be  frank?" 

"  You  have  the  right  to  ask  me  that  degrading  ques- 
tion," he  said,  in  a  voice  weakened  by  the  violent  palpi- 
tation of  his  heart. 

21 


322  Modeste   Mignon. 

"  Well,  then,  did  you  read  my  letters  to  Monsieur  de 
Canalis  ?  " 

u  No,  mademoiselle  ;  and  if  I  allowed  your  father  to 
read  them  it  was  to  justify  my  love  by  showing  him  how 
it  was  born,  and  how  sincere  my  efforts  were  to  cure 
you  of  your  fancy." 

"But  how  came  the  idea  of  that  unworthy  masquerad- 
ing ever  to  arise  ?  "  she  said,  with  a  sort  of  impatience. 

La  Briere  related  truthfully  the  scene  in  the  poet's 
study  which  Modeste' s  first  letter  had  occasioned,  and 
the  sort  of  challenge  that  resulted  from  his  expressing 
a  favorable  opinion  of  a  young  girl  thus  led  toward  a 
poet's  fame,  as  a  plant  seeks  its  share  of  the  sun. 

"You  have  said  enough, "  answered  Modeste,  re- 
straining some  emotion.  "  If  you  have  not  my  heart, 
monsieur,  you  have  at  least  my  esteem." 

These  simple  words  gave  the  young  man  a  violent 
shock ;  feeling  himself  stagger,  he  leaned  against  a 
tree,  like  a  man  deprived  for  a  moment  of  reason. 
Modeste,  who  had  left  him,  turned  her  head  and  came 
hastily  back. 

"  What  is  the  matter?"  she  asked,  taking  his  hand 
to  prevent  him  from  falling. 

m  Forgive  me  —  I  thought  joxx  despised  me." 

"But,"  she  answered,  with  a  distant  and  disdainful 
manner,  "  I  did  not  say  that  I  loved  you." 

And  she  left  him  again.  But  this  time,  in  spite  of 
her  harshness,  La  Briere  thought  he  walked  on  air ;  the 
earth  softened  under  his  feet,  the  trees  bore  flowers ; 
the  skies  were  rosy,  the  air  cerulean,  as  they  are  in 
the  temples  of  Hymen  in  those  fairy  pantomimes  which 
finish  happily.     In  such  situations   every  woman  is  a 


Modeste   Mignon.  323 

Janus,  and  sees  behind  her  without  turning  round  ;  and 
thus  Modeste  perceived  on  the  face  of  her  lover  the  in- 
dubitable symptoms  of  a  love  like  Butscha's, —  surely 
the  ne  plus  ultra  of  a  woman's  hope.  Moreover,  the 
great  value  which  La  Briere  attached  to  her  opinion 
filled  Modeste  with  an  emotion  that  was  inestimably 
sweet. 

"  Mademoiselle,"  said  Canalis,  leaving  the  colonel 
and  waylaying  Modeste,  "  in  spite  of  the  little  value 
you  attach  to  my  sentiments,  my  honor  is  concerned  in 
effacing  a  stain  under  which  I  have  suffered  too  long. 
Here  is  a  letter  which  I  received  from  the  Duchesse  de 
Chaulieu  five  days  after  my  arrival  in  Havre." 

He  let  Modeste  read  the  first  lines  of  the  letter  we 
have  seen,  which  the  duchess  began  by  saying  that  she 
had  seen  Mongenod,  and  now  wished  to  marry  her  poet 
to  Modeste ;  then  he  tore  that  passage  from  the  body 
of  the  letter,  and  placed  the  fragment  in  her  hand. 

4 « I  cannot  let  you  read  the  rest,"  he  said,  putting  the 
paper  in  his  pocket;  "but  I  confide  these  few. lines  to 
your  discretion,  so  that  you  may  verify  the  writing.  A 
young  girl  who  could  accuse  me  of  ignoble  sentiments  is 
quite  capable  of  suspecting  some  collusion,  some  trick- 
er}T.  Ah,  Modeste,"  he  said,  with  tears  in  his  voice, 
"  your  poet,  the  poet  of  Madame  de  Chaulieu,  has  no 
less  poetry  in  his  heart  than  in  his  mind.  You  .are 
about  to  see  the  duchess ;  suspend  your  judgment  of 
me  till  then." 

He  left  Modeste  half  bewildered. 

"Oh,  dear!"  she  said  to  herself;  "it  seems  they 
are  all  angels  —  and  not  marriageable  ;  the  duke  is  the 
onlyone  that  belongs  to  humanity." 


f\ 


324  Modeste   Mignon. 

"  Mademoiselle  Modeste,"  said  Butscha,  appearing 
with  a  parcel  under  his  arm,  "this  hunt  makes  me 
very  uneas}'.  I  dreamed  your  horse  ran  awa}T  with 
30a,  and  I  have  been  to  Rouen  to  see  if  I  could  get 
a  Spanish  bit  which,  they  tell  me,  a  horse  can't  take 
between  his  teeth.  I  entreat  you  to  use  it.  I  have 
shown  it  to  the  colonel,  and  he  has  thanked  me  more 
than  there  is  any  occasion  for." 

"Poor,  dear  Butscha!"  cried  Modeste,  moved  to 
tears  by  this  maternal  care. 

Butscha  went  skipping  off  like  a  man  who  has  just 
.heard  of  the  death  of  a  rich  uncle. 

"My  dear  father,"  said  Modeste,  returning  to  the 
salon;  UI  should  like  to  have  that  beautiful  whip, — 
suppose  you  were  to  ask  Monsieur  de  La  Briere  to  ex- 
change it  for  your  picture  by  Van  Ostade." 

Modeste  looked  furtively  at  Ernest,  while  the  colonel 
made  him  this  proposition,  standing  before  the  picture 
which  was  the  sole  thing  he  possessed  in  memory  of  his 
campaigns,  having  bought  it  of  a  burgher  at  Ratisbon  ; 
and  she  said  to  herself  as  La  Briere  left  the  room  pre- 
cipitately, "  He  will  be  at  the  hunt." 

A  curious  thing  happened.  Modeste' s  three  lovers 
each  and  all  went  to  Rosernbray  with  their  hearts  full 
of  hope,  and  captivated  by  her  many  perfections. 

Rosembray  —  an  estate  lately  purchased  b}r  the  Due 
de  Verneuil,  with  the  money  which  fell  to  him  as  his 
share  of  the  thousand  millions  voted  a**  indemnit}7  for 
the  sale  of  the  lands  of  the  emigres  —  is  remarkable 
for  its  chateau,  whose  magnificence  compares  only  with 
that  of  Mesniere  or  of  Balleroy.  This  imposing  and 
noble  edifice  is  approached  by  a  wide  avenue  of  four 


Modeste   Mignon.  325 

rows  of  venerable  elms,  from  which  the  visitor  enters 
an  immense  rising  court-yard,  like  that  at  Versailles, 
with  magnificent  iron  railings  and  two  lodges,  and 
adorned  with  rows  of  large  orange-trees  in  their 
tubs.  Facing  this  court-yard,  the  chateau  presents, 
betwen  two  fronts  of  the  main  building  which  retreat 
on  either  side  of  this  projection,  a  double  row  of  nine- 
teen tall  windows,  with  carved  arches  and  diamond 
panes,  divided  from  each  other  by  a  series  of  fluted 
pilasters  surmounted  by  an  entablature  which  hides 
an  Italian  roof,  from  which  rise  several  stone  chim- 
neys masked  by  carved  trophies  of  arms.  Rosembray 
was  built,  under  Louis  XIV.,  by  a  fermier- general 
named  Cottin.  The  fagade  toward  the  park  differs  from 
that  on  the  court-yard  by  having  a  narrower  projection 
in  the  centre,  with  columns  between  five  windows,  above 
which  rises  a  magnificent  pediment.  The  family  of 
Marigny,  to  whom  the  estates  of  this  Cottin  were 
brought  in  marriage  by  Mademoiselle  Cottin,  her  fa- 
ther's sole  heiress,  ordered  a  sunrise  to  be  carved  on 
this  pediment  by  Coysevox.  Beneath  it  are  two  angels 
unwinding  a  scroll,  on  which  is  cut  this  motto  in  honor 
of  the  Grand  Monarch,  Sol  nobis  benignus. 

From  the  portico,  reached  by  two  grand  circular  and 
balus traded  flights  of  steps,  the  view  extends  over  an 
immense  fish-pond,  as  long  and  wide  as  the  grand  canal 
at  Versailles,  beginning  at  the  foot  of  a  grass-plot 
which  compares  well  with  the  finest  English  lawns,  and 
bordered  with  beds  and  baskets  now  filled  with  the 
brilliant  flowers  of  autumn.  On  either  side  of  the  piece 
of  water  two  gardens,  laid  out  in  the  French  style,  dis- 
play their  squares  and  long  straight  paths,  like  brilliant 


326 


Modeste   Mignon. 


pages  written  in  the  ciphers  of  Lenotre.  These  gardens 
are  backed  to  their  whole  length  by  a  border  of  nearly 
thirty  acres  of  woodland.  From  the  terrace  the  view  is 
bounded  by  a  forest  belonging  to  Rosembray  and  con- 
tiguous to  two  other  forests,  one  of  which  belongs  to  the 
Crown,  the  other  to  the  State.  It  would  be  difficult  to 
find  a  nobler  landscape. 


Modeste   Mignon.  327 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 
a  girl's  revenge. 

Modeste's  arrival  at  Rosembray  made  a  certain  sen- 
sation in  the  avenue  when  the  carriage  with  the  liveries 
of  France  came  in  sight,  accompanied  by  the  grand 
equerry,  the  colonel,  Canalis,  and  La  Briere  on  horse- 
back, preceded  by  an  outrider  in  full  dress,  and  fol- 
lowed by  six  servants,  —  among  whom  were  the  negroes 
and  the  mulatto,  —  and  the  britzka  of  the  colonel  for  the 
two  waiting-women  and  the  luggage.  The  carriage  was 
drawn  by  four  horses,  ridden  by  postilions  dressed 
with  an  elegance  specially  commanded  by  the  grand 
equerry,  who  was  often  better  served  than  the  king 
himself.  As  Modeste,  dazzled  by  the  magnificence  of 
the  great  lords,  entered  and  beheld  this  lesser  Versailles, 
she  suddenly  remembered  her  approaching  interview 
with  the  celebrated  duchesses,  and  began  to  fear  that 
she  might  seem  awkward,  or  provincial,  or  parvenue ; 
in  fact,  she  lost  her  self-possession,  and  heartily  re- 
pented having  wished  for  a  hunt. 

Fortunately,  however,  as  the  carriage  drew  up,  Mo- 
deste saw  an  old  man,  in  a  blond  wig  frizzed  into  little 
curls,  whose  calm,  plump,  smooth  face  wore  a  fatherly 
smile  and  an  expression  of  monastic  cheerfulness  which 
the  half-veiled  glance  of  the  eye  rendered  almost  noble. 
This  was  the  Due  de  Verneuil,  master  of  Rosembray. 


328  Modeste   Mignon. 

The  duchess,  a  woman  of  extreme  piety,  the  only 
daughter  of  a  rich  and  deceased  chief-justice,  spare 
and  erect,  and  the  mother  of  four  children,  resembled 
Madame  Latournelle,  —  if  the  imagination  can  go  so 
far  as  to  adorn  the  notary's  wife  with  the  graces  of  a 
bearing  that  was  truly  abbatial. 

"  Ah,  good  morning,  dear  Hortense !  "  said  Made- 
moiselle d'Herouville,  kissing  the  duchess  with  the  sym- 
pathy that  united  their  haughty  natures;  "let  me 
present  to  you  and  to  the  dear  duke  our  little  angel, 
Mademoiselle  de  La  Bastie." 

M  We  have  heard  so  much  of  you,  mademoiselle," 
said  the  duchess,  u  that  we  were  in  haste  to  receive 
you." 

"  And  regret  the  time  lost,"  added  the  Due  de  Ver- 
neuil,  with  courteous  admiration. 

u  Monsieur  le  Comte  de  La  Bastie,"  said  the  grand 
equerry,  taking  thfe  colonel  by  the  arm  and  presenting 
him  to  the  duke  and  duchess,  with  an  air  of  respect  in 
his  tone  and  gesture. 

"I  am  glad  to  welcome  you,  Monsieur  le  comte!" 
said  Monsieur  de  Verneuil.  "You  possess  more  than 
one  treasure,"  he  added,  looking  at  Modeste. 

The  duchess  took  Modeste  under  her  arm  and  led 
her  into  an  immense  salon,  where  a  dozen  or  more 
women  were  grouped  about  the  fireplace.  The  men  of 
the  party  remained  with  the  duke  on  the  terrace,  ex- 
cept Canalis,  who  respectfully  made  his  way  to  the 
superb  Eleonore.  The  Duchesse  de  Chaulieu,  seated 
at  an  embroidery-frame,  was  showing  Mademoiselle  de 
Verneuil  how  to  shade  a  flower. 

If  Modeste  had  run  a  needle  through  her  finger  when 


Modeste   Mignon.  329 

handling  a  pin-cushion  she  could  not  have  felt  a  sharper 
prick  than  she  received  from  the  cold  and  haughty  and 
contemptuous  stare  with  which  Madame  de  Chaulieu 
favored  her.  For  an  instant  she  saw  nothing  but  that 
one  woman,  and  she  saw  through  her.  To  understand 
the  depths  of  cruelty  to  which  these  charming  creatures, 
whom  our  passions  deify,  can  go,  we  must  see  women 
with  each  other.  Modeste  would  have  disarmed  al- 
most  any  other  than  Eleonore  by  the  perfectly  stupid 
and  involuntary  admiration  which  her  face  betrayed. 
Had  she  not  known  the  duchess's  age  she  would  have 
thought  her  a  woman  of  thirty-six ;  but  other  and 
greater  astonishments  awaited  her. 

The  poet  had  run  plump  against  a  great  lady's  anger. 
Such  anger  is  the  worst  of  sphinxes ;  the  face  is  radi- 
ant, all  the  rest  menacing.  Kings  themselves  cannot 
make  the  exquisite  politeness  of  a  mistress's  cold  anger 
capitulate  when  she  guards  it  with  steel  armor.  Canalis 
tried  to  cling  to  the  steel,  but  his  fingers  slipped  on  the 
polished  surface,  like  his  words  on  the  heart ;  and  the 
gracious  face,  the  gracious  words,  the  gracious  bearing 
of  the  duchess  hid  the  steel  of  her  wrath,  now  fallen 
to  twenty- five  below  zero,  from  all  observers.  The  ap- 
pearance of  Modeste  in  her  sublime  beauty,  and  dressed 
as  well  as  Diane  de  Maufrigneuse  herself,  had  fired  the 
train  of  gunpowder  which  reflection  had  been  laying  in 
Eleonore's  mind. 

All  the  women  had  gone  to  the  windows  to  see  the 
new  wonder  get  out  of  the  royal  carriage,  attended  by 
her  three  suitors. 

"  Do  not  let  us  seem  so  curious,"  Madame  de  Chau- 
lieu had   said,  cut  to  the  heart   by  Diane's  exclama- 


330  Modeste  Mignon. 

tion,  —  "  She  is  divine !  where  in  the  world  does  she 
come  from?"  —  and  with  that  the  bevy  flew  back  to 
their  seats,  resuming  their  composure,  though  Eleonore's 
heart  was  full  of  hungry  vipers  all  clamorous  for  a 
meal. 

Mademoiselle  d'Herouville  said  in  a  low  voice  and 
with  much  meaning  to  the  Duchesse  de  Verneuil, 
"  Eleonore  receives  her  Melchior  verj^  ungraciously /[_ 

^^The  Duchesse  de  Maufrigneuse  thinks  there  is  a 
coolness  between  them,"  said  Laure  de  Verneuil,  with 
simplicity. 

Charming  phrase !  so  often  used  in  the  world  of 
society,  —  how  the  north  wind  blows  through  it. 

"  Why  so?"  asked  Modeste  of  the  pretty  young 
girl  who  had  lately  left  the  Sacre-Cceur. 

"  The  great  poet,"  said  the  pious  duchess  —  making 
a  sign  to  her  daughter  to  be  silent  —  "  left  Madame  de 
Chaulieu  without  a  letter  for  more  than  two  weeks  after 
he  went  to  Havre,  having  told  her  that  he  went  there 
for  his  health  —  " 

Modeste  made  a  hasty  movement,  which  caught 
the  attention  of  Laure,  Helene,  and  Mademoiselle 
d'Herouville. 

"  —  and  during  that  time,"  continued  the  devout 
duchess,  "  she  was  endeavoring  to  have  him  appointed 
commander  of  the  Legion  of  honor,  and  minister  at 
Baden." 

* '  Oh,  that  was  shameful  in  Canalis  ;  he  owes  every- 
thing to  her,"  exclaimed  Mademoiselle  d'Herouville. 

4 '  Wh}^  did  not  Madame  de  Chaulieu  come  to  Havre  ?  " 
asked  Modeste  of  Helene,  innocently. 

;  c  My  dear,"  said  the   Duchesse  de  Verneuil,  '  \  she 


Modeste  Mignon.  331 

would  let  herself  be  cut  in  little  pieces  without  sa}Ting  a 
word.  Look  at  her,  —  she  is  regal ;  her  head  would 
smile,  like  Mary  Stuart's,  after  it  was  cut  off;  in  fact, 
she  has  some  of  that  blood  in  her  veins." 

"  Did  she  not  write  to  him?  "  asked  Modeste. 

"  Diane  tells  me,"  answered  the  duchess,  prompted 
by  a  nudge  from  Mademoiselle  d'Herouville,  "that  in 
answer  to  Canalis's  first  letter  she  made  a  cutting  .reply 
a  few  days,  ago . " 

This  explanation  made  Modeste  blush  with  shame 
for  the  man  before  her ;  she  longed,  not  to  crush  him 
under  her  feet,  but  to  revenge  herself  by  one  of  those 
malicious  acts  that  are  sharper  than  a  dagger's  thrust. 
She  looked  haughtily  at  the  Duchesse  de  Chaulieu  — 

"  Monsieur  Melchior  !  "  she  said. 

All  the  women  snuffed  the  air  and  looked  alternately 
at  the  duchess,  who  was  talking  in  an  undertone  to 
Canalis  over  the  embroidery- frame,  and  then  at  the 
young  jrirl  so  ill  brought  up  as  to  disturb  a  lovers' 
meeting,  —  a  thing  not  permissible  in  any  society. 
Diane  de  Maufrigneuse  nodded,  however,  as  much  as 
to  sajT,  "The  child  is  in  the  right  of  it."  All  the 
women  ended  by  smiling  at  each  other ;  thejT  were  en- 
raged with  a  woman  who  was  fifty-six  years  old  and 
still  handsome  enough  to  put  her  fingers  into  the  treas- 
uiy  and  steal  the  dues  of  youth.  Melchior  looked  at 
Modeste  with  feverish  impatience,  and  made  the  gest- 
ure of  a  master  to  a  valet,  while  the  duchess  lowered 
her  head  with  the  movement  of  a  lioness  disturbed  at 
a  meal ;  her  eyes,  fastened  on  the  canvas,  emitted  red 
flames  in  the  direction  of  the  poet,  which  stabbed  like 
epigrams,  for  each  word  revealed  to  her  a  triple  insult. 


332       #  Modeste    Mignon. 

1 '  Monsieur  Melchior !  "  said  Modeste  again  in  a 
voice  that  asserted  its  right  to  be  heard. 

"  What,  mademoiselle?  "  demanded  the  poet. 

Forced  to  rise,  he  remained  standing  half-way  be- 
tween the  embroidery  frame,  which  was  near  a  window, 
and  the  fireplace  where  Modeste  was  seated  with  the 
Duchesse  de  Verneuil  on  a  sofa.  What  bitter  reflections 
came  into  his  ambitious  mind,  as  he  caught  a  glance 
from  Eleonore.  If  he  obeyed  Modeste  all  was  over, 
and  forever,  between  himself  and  his  protectress.  Not 
to  obey  her  was  to  avow  his  slavery,  to  lose  the  chances 
of  his  twenty-five  days  of  base  manoeuvring,  and  to 
disregard  the  plainest  laws  of  decency  and  civility. 
The  greater  the  folly,  the  more  imperatively  the  duchess 
exacted  it.  Modeste' s  beauty  and  money  thus  pitted 
against  Eleonore's  rights  and  influence  made  this  hesi- 
r  tation  between  the  man  and  his  honor  as  terrible  to 
witness  as  the  peril  of  a  matadore  in  the  arena.  A  man 
seldom  feels  such  palpitations  as  those  which  now  came 
near  causing  Canalis  an  aneurism,  except,  perhaps,  be- 
fore the  green  table,  where  his  fortune  or  his  ruin  is 
about  to  be  decided. 

"  Mademoiselle  d'Herouville  hurried  me  from  the  car- 
riage, and  I  left  behind  me,"  said  Modeste  to  Canalis, 
"  my  handkerchief — " 

Canalis  shrugged  his  shoulders  significantly. 

"  And,"  continued  Modeste,  taking  no  notice  of  his 
gesture,  "  I  had  tied  into  one  corner  of  it  the  key  of 
a  desk  which  contains  the  fragment  of  an  important 
letter ;  have  the  kindness,  Monsieur  Melchior,  to  get  it 
for  me." 

Between  an  angel  and  a  tiger  equally  enraged  Canalis, 


Modeste   Mignon.  333 

who  had  turned  livid,  no  longer  hesitated,  —  the  tiger 
seemed  to  him  the  least  dangerous  of  the  two ;  and  he 
was  about  to  do  as  he  was  told,  and  commit  himself 
irretrievably,  when  La  Briere  appeared  at  the  door  of 
the  salon,  seeming  to  his  anguished  mind  like  the  arch- 
angel Gabriel  tumbling  from  heaven. 

"  Ernest,  here,  Mademoiselle  de  La  Bastie  wants 
you,"  said  the  poet,  hastily  returning  to  his  chair  by  the 
embroider}'  frame. 

Ernest  rushed  to  Modeste  without  bowing  to  any 
one ;  he  saw  only  her,  took  his  commission  with  undis- 
guised joy,  and  darted  from  the  room,  with  the  secret 
approbation  of  every  woman  present. 

"  What  an  occupation  for  a  poet !  "  said  Modeste  to 
Helene  d'Herouville,  glancing  toward  the  embroidery 
at  which  the  duchess  was  now  working  savagety. 

"  If  you  speak  to  her,  if  you  ever  look  at  her,  all  is 
over  between  us,"  said  the  duchess  to  the  poet  in  a  low 
voice,  not  at  all  satisfied  with  the  very  doubtful  termi- 
nation which  Ernest's  arrival  had  put  to  the  scene ; 
"  and  remember,  if  I  am  not  present,  I  leave  behind 
me  eyes  that  will  watch  you." 

So  saying,  the  duchess,  a  woman  of  medium  height, 
but  a  little  too  stout,  like  all  women  over  fifty  who  re- 
tain their  beauty,  rose  and  walked  toward  the  group 
which  surrounded  Diane  de  Maufrigneuse,  stepping 
daintily  on  little  feet  that  were  as  slender  and  nervous 
as  a  deer's.  Beneath  her  plumpness  could  be  seen  the 
exquisite  delicacy  of  such  women,  which  comes  from 
the  vigor  of  their  nervous  systems  controlling  and 
vitalizing  the  development  of  flesh.  There  is  no  other 
way  to  explain  the  lightness  of  her  step,  and  the  in- 


334  Modeste   Mignon. 

comparable  nobility  of  her  bearing.  None  but  the 
women  whose  quarterings  begin  with  Noah  know,  as 
Eleonore  did,  how  to  be  majestic  in  spite  of  a  buxom 
tendency.  A  philosopher  might  have  pitied  Philoxene, 
while  admiring  the  graceful  lines  of  the  bust  and  the 
minute  care  bestowed  upon  a  morning  dress,  which  was 
worn  with  the  elegance  of  a  queen  and  the  easj'  grace 
of  a  young  girl.  Her  abundant  hair,  still  undyed,  was 
simply  wound  about  her  head  in  plaits ;  she  bared  her 
snowy  throat  and  shoulders,  exquisitely  modelled,  and 
her  celebrated  hand  and  arm,  with  pardonable  pride. 
Modeste,  together  with  all  other  antagonists  of  the 
duchess,  recognized  in  her  a  woman  of  whom  the}^  were 
forced  to  say,  u  She  eclipses  us."  In  fact,  Eleonore 
was  one  of  the  grandes  dames  now  so  rare.  To  en- 
deavor to  explain  what  august  quality  there  was  in  the 
carriage  of  the  head,  what  refinement  and  delicacy  in 
the  curve  of  the  throat,  what  harmony  in  her  move- 
ments, and  nobility  in  her  bearing,  what  grandeur  in 
the  perfect  accord  of  details  with  the  whole  being,  and 
in  the  arts,  now  a  second  nature,  which  render  a  woman 
grand  and  even  sacred,  —  to  explain  all  these  things 
would  simply  be  to  attempt  to  analyze  the  sublime. 
People  enjoy  such  poetry  as  they  enjoy  that  of  Pa- 
ganini ;  they  do  not  explain  to  themselves  the  medium, 
they  know  the  cause  is  in  the  spirit  that  remains 
invisible. 

Madame  de  Chaulieu  bowed  her  head  in  salutation  of 
Helene  and  her  aunt ;  then,  saying  to  Diane,  in  a  pure 
and  equable  tone  of  voice,  without  a  trace  of  emotion, 
"  Is  it  not  time  to  dress,  duchess?  "  she  made  her  exit, 
accompanied  by  her  daughter-in-law  and  Mademoiselle 


Modeste   Mignon.  335 

d'Herouville.  As  she  left  the  room  she  spoke  in  an 
undertone  to  the  old  maid,  who  pressed  her  arm,  say- 
ing, "  You  are  charming,"  —  which  meant,  "  I  am  all 
gratitude  for  the  service  you  have  just  done  us."  After 
that,  Mademoiselle  d'Herouville  returned  to  the  salon 
to  play  her  part  of  spy,  and  her  first  glance  apprised 
Canalis  that  the  duchess  had  made  him  no  empty 
threat.  That  apprentice  in  diplomacy  became  aware 
that  his  science  was  not  sufficient  for  a  struggle  of  this 
kind,  and  his  wit  served  him  to  take  a  more  honest 
position,  if  not  a  worthier  one.  When  Ernest  returned, 
bringing  Modeste's  handkerchief,  the  poet  seized  his 
arm  and  took  him  out  on  the  terrace. 

"My  dear  friend,"  he  said,  "I  am  not  only  the 
most  unfortunate  man  in  the  world,  but  I  am  also  the 
most  ridiculous ;  and  I  come  to  you  to  get  me  out  of 
the  hornet's  nest  into  which  I  have  run  myself.  Mo- 
deste is  a  demon ;  she  sees  my  difficulty  and  she  laughs 
at  it ;  she  has  just  spoken  to  me  of  a  fragment  of  a 
letter  of  Madame  de  Chaulieu,  which  I  had  the. folly 
to  give  her ;  if  she  shows  it  I  can  never  make  my 
peace  with  Eleonore.  Therefore,  will  you  at  once  ask 
Modeste  to  send  me  back  that  paper,  and  tell  her, 
from  me,  that  I  make  no  pretensions  to  her  hand.  Say 
I  count  upon  her  delicacy,  upon  her  propriety  as  a 
young  girl,  to  behave  to  me  as  if  we  had  never  known 
each  other.  I  beg  her  not  to  speak  to  me  ;  I  implore  ^> 
her  to  treat  me  harshly,  —  though  I  hardly  dare  to  ask  ^ 
her  to  feign  a  jealous  anger,  which  would  help^  my. 
interests  amazingly.  Go,  I  will  wait  hereT  for  an 
r:^nswer." 


336  Mode st e   Mignon. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

MODESTE   BEHAVES    WITH   DIGNITY. 

On  re-entering  the  salon  Ernest  de  La  Briere  found  a 
young  officer  of  the  company  of  the  guard  d'Havre,  the 
Vicomte  de  Serizy,  who  had  just  arrived  from  Rosn3T  to 
announce  that  Madame  was  obliged  to  be  present  at 
the  opening  of  the  Chambers.  We  know  the  importance 
then  attached  to  this  constitutional  solemnity,  at  which 
Charles  X.  delivered  his  speech,  surrounded  by  the 
royal  family,  —  Madame  la  Dauphine  and  Madame  be- 
ing present  in  their  gallery.  The  choice  of  the  emis- 
sary charged  with  the  duty  of  expressing  the  princess's 
regrets  was  an  attention  to  Diane,  who  was  then  an  ob- 
ject of  adoration  to  this  charming  }roung  man,  son  of  a 
minister  of  state,  gentleman  in  ordinary  of  the  cham- 
ber, only  son  and  heir  to  an  immense  fortune.  The 
Duchesse  de  Maufrigneuse  permitted  his  attentions 
solely  for  the  purpose  of  attracting  notice  to  the  age  of 
his  mother,  Madame  de  Seriz}^  who  was  said,  in  those 
chronicles  that  are  whispered  behind  the  fans,  to  have 
deprived  her  of  the  heart  of  the  handsome  Lucien  de 
Rubempre. 

"You  will  do  us  the  pleasure,  I  hope,  to  remain 
at  Rosembray,"  said  the  severe  duchess  to  the  young 
officer. 

While  giving  ear  to  every  scandal,  the  devout  lady 
shut  her  eyes  to  the  derelictions  of  her  guests  who  had 


Modeste   Mignon.  337 

been  carefully  selected  by  the  duke ;  indeed,  it  is  sur- 
prising how  much  these  excellent  women  will  tolerate 
under  pretence  of  bringing  the  lost  sheep  back  to  the 
fold  by  their  indulgence. 

"  We  reckoned  without  our  constitutional  govern- 
ment," said  the  grand  equerry;  u  and  Rosembray, 
Madame  la  duchesse,  will  lose  a  great  honor." 

"  We  shall  be  more  at  our  ease,"  said  a  tall  thin  old 
man,  about  seventy-five  years  of  age,  dressed  in  blue 
cloth,  and  wearing  his  hunting-cap  by  permission  of  the 
ladies.  This  personage,  who  closely  resembled  the  Due 
de  Bourbon,  was  no  less  than  the  JJrince  de  Cadignan, 
Master  of  the  Hunt,  and  one  of  the  lasTof  the  great 
French  lords.  Just  as  La  Briere  was  endeavoring  to 
slip  behind  the  sofa  and  obtain  a  moment's  intercourse 
with  Modeste,  a  man  of  thirty-eight,  short,  fat,  and  very 
common  in  appearance,  entered  the  room. 

u  My  son.  the  Prince  de  Loudon,"  said  the  Duchesse 
de  Verneuil  to  Modeste,  who  could  not  restrain  the  ex- 
pression of  amazement  that  overspread  her  young  face 
on  seeing  the  man  who  bore  the  historical  name  that  the 
hero  of  La  Vendee  had  rendered  famous  by  his  bravery 
and  the  martyrdom  of  his  death. 

u  Gaspard,"  said  the  duchess,  calling  her  son  to  her. 
The  young  prince  came  at  once,  and  his  mother  con- 
tinued, motioning  to  Modeste,  "Mademoiselle  de  La 
Bastie,  my  friend." 

The  heir  presumptive,  whose  marriage  with  Desplein's 
only  daughter  had  lately  been  arranged,  bowed  to  the 
young  girl  without  seeming  struck,  as  his  father  had 
been,  with  her  beaut}'.  Modeste  was  thus  enabled  to 
compare  the  youth  of  to-day  with  the  old  age  of  a  past 

22 


338  Modeste    Mignon. 

epoch  ;  for  the  old  Prince  de  Cadignan  had  already  said 
a  few  words  which  made  her  feel  that  he  rendered  as 
true  a  homage  to  womanhood  as  to  royalty.  The  Due 
de  Rhetore,  the  eldest  son  of  the  Duchesse  de  Chaulieu, 
chiefly  remarkable  for  manners  that  were  equally  im- 
pertinent and  free  and  easy,  bowed  to  Modeste  rather 
cavalierly.  The  reason  of  this  contrast  between  the 
fathers  and  the  sons  is  to  be  found,  probably,  in  the  fact 
that  young  men  no  longer  feel  themselves  great  beings, 
as  their  forefathers  did,  and  they  dispense  with  the  du- 
ties of  greatness,  knowing  well  that  the}r  are  now  but  the 
shadow  of  it.  The  fathers  retain  the  inherent  politeness 
of  their  vanished  grandeur,  like  the  mountain-tops  still 
gilded  by  the  sun  when  all  is  twilight  in  the  valle}7. 

Ernest  was  at  last  able  to  slip  a  word  into  Modeste's 
ear,  and  she  rose  immediately. 

"  My  dear,"  said  the  duchess,  thinking  she  was  go- 
ing to  dress,  and  pulling  a  bell-rope,  "  they  shall  show 
you  your  appartment." 

Ernest  accompanied  Modeste  to  the  foot  of  the  grand 
staircase,  presenting  the  request  of  the  luckless  poet,  and 
endeavoring  to  touch  her  feelings  b}7  describing  Mel- 
chior's  agony. 

"  You  see,  he  loves  —  he  is  a  captive  who  thought  he 
could  break  his  chain." 

4%  Love  in  such  a  rabid  seeker  after  fortune  !  "  retorted 
Modeste. 

"  Mademoiselle,  you  are  at  the  entrance  of  life ;  you 
do  not  know  its  defiles.  The  inconsistencies  of  a  man 
who  falls  under  the  dominion  of  a  woman  much  older 
than  himself  should  be  forgiven,  for  he  is  really  not 
accountable.      Think  how  many  sacrifices  Canalis  has 


Modeste   Mignon.  339 

made  to  her.  He  has  sown  too  much  seed  of  that  kind 
to  resign  the  harvest ;  the  duchess  represents  to  him  ten 
years  of  devotion  and  happiness.  You  made  him  for- 
get all  that,  and  unfortunately,  he  has  more  vanity 
than  pride  ;  he  did  not  reflect  on  what  he  was  losing 
until  he  met  Madame  de  Chaulieu  here  to-day.  If  you 
really  understood  him,  you  would  help  him.  He  is  a 
child,  always  mismanaging  his  life.  You  call  him  a 
seeker  after  fortune,  but  he  seeks  very  badly  ;  like  all 
poets,  he  is  the  victim  of  sensations ;  he  is  childish, 
easily  dazzled  like  a  child  by  anything  that  shines,  and 
pursuing  its  glitter.  He  used  to  love  horses  and  pic- 
tures, and  he  craved  fame, — well,  he  sold  his  pictures 
to  buy  armor  and  old  furniture  of  the  Renaissance  and 
Louis  XV. ;  just  now  he  is  seeking  political  power. 
Admit  that  his  hobbies  are  noble  things. " 

"  You  have  said  enough,''  replied  Modeste  ;  "  come," 
she  added,  seeing  her  father,  whom  she  called  with  a 
motion  of  her  head  to  give  her  his  arm  ;  "come  with 
me,  and  I  will  give  you  that  scrap  of  paper ;  }Tou  shall 
carry  it  to  the  great  man  and  assure  him  of  my  conde- 
scension to  his  wishes,  but  on  one  condition,  —  you  must 
thank  him  in  my  name  for  the  pleasure  I  have  taken  in 
seeing  one  of  the  finest  of  the  German  plays  performed 
in  my  honor.  I  have  learned  that  Goethe's  masterpiece 
is  neither  Faust  nor  Egmont  — "  and  then,  as  Ernest 
looked  at  the  malicious  girl  with  a  puzzled  air,  she 
added:  "It  is  Torquato  Tasso !  Tell  Monsieur  de 
Canalis  to  re-read  it,"  she  added  smiling ;  "  I  particu-  | 
larly  desire  that  you  will  repeat  to  your  friend  word  for 
word  what  I  say  ;  for  it  is  not  an  epigram,  it  is  the  jus- 
tification of  his  conduct,  —  with  this  trifling  difference, 


340  Modeste   Mignon. 

that  he  will,  I  trust,  become  more  and  more  reason- 
able, thanks  to  the  folly  of  his  Eleonore." 

The  duchess's  head-woman  conducted  Modeste  and 
her  father  to  their  appartment,  where  Francoise  Cochet 
had  already  put  everything  in  order,  and  the  choice  ele- 
gance of  which  astonished  the  colonel,  more  especially 
after  he  heard  from  Francoise  that  there  were  thirt}^ 
other  appartments  in  the  chateau  decorated  with  the 
same  taste. 

"This  is  what  I  call  a  proper  country-house,"  said 
Modeste. 

"  The  Comte  de  La  Bastie  must  build  you  one  like 
it,"  replied  her  father. 

M  Here,  monsieur,"  said  Modeste,  giving  the  bit  of 
paper  to  Ernest;  "  cany  it  to  our  friend  and  put  him 
out  of  his  misery." 

The  word  our  friend  struck  the  young  man's  heart. 
He  looked  at  Modeste  to  see  if  there  was  anything  real 
in  the  community  of  interests  which  she  seemed  to  ad- 
mit, and  she,  understanding  perfectly  what  his  look 
meant,  added,  "  Come,  go  at  once,  your  friend  is 
waiting." 

La  Briere  colored  excessively,  and  left  the  room  in  a 
state  of  doubt  and  anxiety  less  endurable  than  despair. 
The  path  that  approaches  happiness  is,  to  the  true 
lover,  like  the  narrow  way  which  Catholic  poetry  has 
called  the  entrance  to  Paradise,  —  expressing  thus  a 
dark  and  gloomy  passage,  echoing  with  the  last  cries  of 
earthly  anguish. 

An  hour  later  the  illustrious  company  were  all  as- 
sembled in  the  salon  ;  some  were  playing  whist,  others 
conversing ;  the  women  had  their  embroideries  in  hand, 


Modeste  Mignon.  341 

and  all  were  waiting  the  announcement  of  dinner.  The 
Prince  de  Cadignan  was  drawing  Monsieur  Mignon  out 
upon  China,  and  his  campaigns  under  the  empire,  and 
making  him  talk  about  the  Portendueres,  the  L'Esto- 
rades,  and  the  Maucombes,  Provencal  families ;  he 
blamed  him  for  not  seeking  service,  and  assured  him 
that  nothing  would  be  easier  than  to  restore  him  to  his 
rank  as  colonel  of  the  Guard. 

1 1  A  man  of  your  birth  and  your  fortune  ought  not 
to  belong  to  the  present  Opposition,"  said  the  prince, 
smiling. 

This  society  of  distinguished  persons  not  only  pleased 
Modeste,  but  it  enabled  her  to  acquire,  during  her  sta}^ 
a  perfection  of  manners  which  without  this  revelation 
she  would  have  lacked  all  her  life.  Show  a  clock  to  an 
embryo  mechanic,  and  you  reveal  to  him  the  whole 
mechanism ;  he  thus  develops  the  germs  of  his  faculty 
which  lie  dormant  within  him.  In  like  manner 
Modeste  had  the  instinct  to  appropriate  the  distinctive 
qualities  of  Madame  de  Maufrigneuse  and  Madame  de 
Chaulieu.  For  her,  the  sight  of  those  women  was  an 
education ;  whereas  a  bourgeoise  would  merely  have 
ridiculed  their  ways  or  made  them  absurd  by  clumsy 
imitation.  A  well-born,  well-educated,  and  right-minded 
young  woman  like  Modeste  fell  naturally  into  connec- 
tion with  these  people,  and  saw  at  once  the  differences 
that  separate  the  aristocratic  world  from  the  bourgeois 
world,  the  provinces  from  the  faubourg  Saint-Germain ; 
she  caught  the  almost  imperceptible  shadings  ;  in  short, 
she  perceived  the  grace  of  the  grande  dame  without 
doubting  that  she  could  herself  acquire  it.  She  noticed 
also  that  her  father  and  La  Briere  appeared  infinitely 


342  Modeste   Mignon. 

better  in  this  Olympus  than  Canalis.  The  great  poet, 
abdicating  his  real  and  incontestable  power,  that  of  the 
mind,  became  nothing  more  than  a  courtier  seeking  a 
ministry,  intriguing  for  an  order,  and  forced  to  please 
the  whole  galaxy.  Ernest  de  La  Briere,  without  am- 
bitions, was  able  to  be  himself;  while  Melchior  became, 
to  use  a  vulgar  expression,  a  mere  toady,  and  courted 
the  Prince  de  Loudon,  the  Due  de  Rhetore,  the  Vicomte 
de  Serizy,  or  the  Due  de  Maufrigneuse,  like  a  man  not 
free  to  assert  himself,  as  did  Colonel  Mignon,  who  was 
justly  proud  of  his  campaigns,  and  of  the  confidence 
of  the  Emperor  Napoleon.  Modeste  took  note  of  the 
strained  efforts  of  the  man  of  real  talent,  seeking  some 
witticism  that  should  raise  a  laugh,  some  clever  speech, 
some  compliment  with  which  to  flatter  these  grand  per- 
sonages, whom  it  was  his  interest  to  please.  In  a  word, 
to  Modeste's  eyes  the  peacock  plucked  out  his  tail- 
feathers. 

Toward  the  middle  of  the  evening  the  young  girl 
sat  down  with  the  grand  equerry  in  a  corner  of  the 
salon.  She  led  him  there  purposely  to  end  a  suit  which 
she  could  no  longer  encourage  if  she  wished  to  retain 
her  self-respect 

,  "  Monsieur  le  due,  if  }'ou  really  knew  me,"  she  said, 
"  3'ou  would  understand  how  deeply  I  am  touched  by 
your  attentions.  It  is  because  of  the  profound  respect 
I  feel  for  your  character,  and  the  friendship  which  a 
soul  like  3'ours  inspires  in  mine,  that  I  cannot  endure  to 
wound  your  self-love.  Before  }Tour  arrival  in  Havre  I 
loved  sincerely,  deeply,  and  forever,  one  who  is  worthy 
of  being  loved,  and  my  affection  for  whom  is  still  a 
secret ;  but  I  wish  you  to  know  —  and  in  saying  this  1 


Modeste   Mignon.  343 

am  more  sincere  than  most  young  girls  —  that  had  I 
not  already  formed  this  voluntary  attachment,  you 
would  have  been  my  choice,  for  I  recognize  }rour  noble 
and  beautiful  qualities.  A  few  words  which  your  aunt 
and  sister  have  said  to  me  as  to  your  intentions  lead 
me  to  make  this  frank  avowal.  If  you  think  it  desir- 
able, a  letter  from  my  mother  shall  recall  -me,  on  pre- 
tence of  her  illness,  to-morrow  morning  before  the  hunt 
begins.  Without  }rour  consent  I  do  not  choose  to  be 
present  at  a  fete  which  I  owe  to  your  kindness,  and 
where,  if  my  secret  should  escape  me,  you  might  feel 
hurt  and  defrauded.  You  will  ask  me  why  I  have 
come  here  at  all.  I  could  not  withstand  the  invitation. 
Be  generous  enough  not  to  reproach  me  for  what  was  al- 
most a  necessar3T  curiosity.  But  this  is  not  the  chief,  nor 
the  most  delicate  thing  I  have  to  sajT  to  you.  You  have 
firm  friends  in  my  father  and  myself,  —  more  so  than 
perhaps  you  realize ;  and  as  my  fortune  was  the  first 
cause  that  brought  you  to  me,  I  wish  to  say  —  but 
without  intending  to  use  it  as  a  sedative  to  calm  the 
grief  which  gallantry  requires  you  to  testify  —  that  my 
father  has  thought  over  the  affair  of  the  marshes,  his 
friend  Dumay  thinks  your  project  feasible,  and  they 
have  already  taken  steps  to  form  a  company.  Goben- 
heim,  Dumay,  and  my  father  have  subscribed  fifteen 
hundred  thousand  francs,  and  undertake  to  get  the  rest 
from  capitalists,  who  will  feel  it  their  interest  to  take 
up  the  matter.  If  I  have  not  the  honor  of  becoming 
the  Duchesse  d'Herouville,  I  have  almost  the  certainty 
of  enabling  you  to  choose  her,  free  from  all  trammels 
in  your  choice,  and  in  a  higher  sphere  than  mine.  Oh  ! 
let  me  finish,"  she  cried,  at  a  gesture  from  the  duke. 


344  Modeste   Mignon. 

"  Judging  by  my  nephew's  emotion,"  whispered 
Mademoiselle  d'Herouville  to  her  niece,  "it  is  easy  to 
to  see  you  have  a  sister." 

"  Monsieur  le  due,  all  this  was  settled  in  my  mind 
the  day  of  our  first  ride,  when  I  heard  you  deplore  jour 
situation.  This  is  what  I  have  wished  to  say  to  you. 
That  day  determined  my  future  life.  Though  you  did 
not  make  the  conquest  of  a  woman,  you  have  at  least 
gained  faithful  friends  at  Ingouville  —  if  you  will  deign 
to  accord  us  that  title." 

This  little  discourse,  which  Modeste  had  carefully 
thought  over,  was  said  with  so  much  charm  of  soul  that 
the  tears  came  to  the  grand  equerry's  eyes ;  he  seized 
her  hand  and  kissed  it. 

"  Stay  during  the  hunt,"  he  said  ;  "  my  want  of  merit 
has  accustomed  me  to  these  refusals  ;  but  while  accept- 
ing your  friendship  and  that  of  the  colonel,  you  must 
let  me  satisfy  myself  by  the  judgment  of  competent 
scientific  men,  that  the  draining  of  those  marshes  will 
be  no  risk  to  the  company  you  speak  of,  before  I  agree  to 
the  generous  offer  of  your  friends.  You  are  a  noble  girl, 
and  though  my  heart  aches  to  think  I  can  only  be  your 
friend,  I  will  glory  in  that  title,  and  prove  it  to  you  at 
all  times  and  in  all  seasons." 

"  In  that  case,  Monsieur  le  due,  let  us  keep  our 
secret.  My  choice  will  not  be  known,  at  least  I  think 
not,  until  after  my  mother's  complete  recovery.  I 
should  like  our  first  blessing  to  come  from  her  eyes." 


Modeste   Mignon.  345 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 


CONCLUSION. 


"Ladies,"  said  the  Prince  de  Caclignan,  as  the 
guests  were  about  to  separate  for  the  night,  "  I  know 
that  several  of  you  propose  to  follow  the  hounds  with 
us  to-morrow,  and  it  becomes  my  duty  to  tell  you  that 
if  you  will  be  Dianas  }Tou  must  rise,  like  Diana,  with 
the  dawn.  The  meet  is  for  half-past  eight  o'clock.  I 
have  in  the  course  of  my  life  seen  many  women  dis- 
play greater  courage  than  men,  but  for  a  few  seconds 
only ;  and  you  will  need  a  strong  dose  of  resolution  to 
keep  you  on  horseback  the  whole  day,  barring  a  halt 
for  breakfast,  which  we  shall  take,  like  true .  hunters 
and  huntresses,  on  the  nail.  Are  you  still  determined 
to  show  yourselves  trained  horse-women  ?  " 

"Prince,  it  is  necessary  for  me  to  do  so,"  said  Mo- 
deste, adroitly. 

M  I  answer  for  myself,"  said  the  Duchesse  de 
Chaulieu. 

"And  I  for  my  daughter  Diane;  she  is  worthy  of 
her  name,"  added  the  prince.  "  So,  then,  you  all  per- 
sist in  your  intentions?  However,  I  shall  arrange,  for 
the  sake  of  Madame  and  Mademoiselle  de  Verneuil  and 
others  of  the  party  who  stay  at  home,  to  drive  the  stag 
to  the  further  end  of  the  pond." 


346  Modeste    Mignon. 

"  Make  yourselves  quite  easy,  mesdames,"  said  the 
Prince  de  Loudon,  when  the  Royal  Huntsman  had  left 
the  room  ;  4  c  that  breakfast  l  on  the  nail '  will  take  place 
under  a  comfortable  tent." 

The  next  day,  at  dawn,  all  signs  gave  promise  of  a 
glorious  da}\  The  skies,  veiled  by  sl  slight  gra}'  vapor, 
showed  spaces  of  purest  blue,  and  would  surely  be 
swept  clear  before  mid-day  by  the  northwest  wind,  which 
was  already  playing  with  the  fleecj7  cloudlets.  As  the 
hunting  party  left  the  chateau,  the  Master  of  the  Hunt, 
the  Due  de  Rhetore,  and  the  Prince  de  Loudon,  who 
had  no  ladies  to  escort,  rode  in  the  advance,  noticing 
the  white  masses  of  the  chateau,  with  its  rising  chim- 
neys relieved  against  the  brilliant  red-brown  foliage 
which  the  trees  in  Normandy  put  on  at  the  close  of  a 
fine  autumn. 

"  The  ladies  are  fortunate  in  their  weather,"  re- 
marked the  Due  de  Rhetore. 

u  Oh,  in  spite  of  all  their  boasting,"  replied  the  Prince 
de  Cadignan,  "I  think  they  will  let  us  hunt  without 
them ! " 

iC  So  they  might,  if  each  had  not  a  squire,"  said  the 
duke. 

At  this  moment  the  attention  of  these  determined 
huntsmen  —  for  the  Prince  de  Loudon  and  the  Due  de 
Rhetore  are  of  the  race  of  Nimrod,  and  the  best  shots 
of  the  faubourg  Saint-Germain  —  was  attracted  by  a 
loud  altercation ;  and  they  spurred  their  horses  to  an 
open  space  at  the  entrance  of  the  forest  of  Rosembray, 
famous  for  its  mossy  turf,  which  was  appointed  for  the 
meet.  The  cause  of  the  quarrel  was  soon  apparent. 
The  Prince  de  Loudon,  afflicted  with  anglomania,  had 


Modeste    Mignon.  347 

brought  out  his  own  hunting  establishment,  which  was 
exclusively  Britannic,  and  placed  it  under  orders  of 
the  Master  of  the  Hunt.  Now,  one  of  his  men,  a  lit- 
tle Englishman,  —  fair,  pale,  insolent,  and  phlegmatic, 
scarcely  able  to  speak  a  word  of  French,  and  dressed 
with  a  neatness  which  distinguishes  all  Britons,  even 
those  of  the  lower  classes,  —  had  posted  himself  on 
one  side  of  this  open  space.  John  Barry  wore  a  short 
frock-coat,  buttoned  tightly  at  the  waist,  made  of  scar- 
let cloth,  with  buttons  bearing  the  De  Verneuil  arms, 
white  leather  breeches,  top-boots,  a  striped  waistcoat, 
and  a  collar  and  cape  of  black  velvet.  He  held  in  his 
hand  a  small  hunting-whip,  and  hanging  to  his  wrist 
by  a  silken  cord  was  a  brass  horn.  This  man,  the  first 
whipper-in,  was  accompanied  by  two  thorough-bred 
dogs,  —  fox-hounds,  white,  with  liver  spots,  long  in  the 
leg,  fine  in  the  muzzle,  with  slender  heads,  and  little 
ears  at  their  crests.  The  huntsman  —  famous  in  the 
English  county  from  which  the  Prince  de  Loudon  had 
obtained  him  at  great  cost  —  was  in  charge  of  an  es- 
tablishment of  fifteen  horses  and  sixty  English  hounds, 
which  cost  the  Due  de  Verneuil,  who  was  nothing  of 
a  huntsman,  but  chose  to  indulge  his  son  in  this  es- 
sentiall}'  royal  taste,  an  enormous  sum  of  monej7  to 
keep  up. 

Now,  when  John  arrived  upon  the  ground,  he  found 
himself  forestalled  by  three  other  whippers-in,  in  charge 
of  two  of  the  royal  packs  of  hounds  which  had  been 
brought  there  in  carts.  They  were  the  three  best  hunts- 
men of  the  Prince  de  Cadignan,  and  presented,  both 
in  character  and  in  their  distinctively  French  costume, 
a   marked   contrast   to  the  representative  of  insolent 


348  Modeste   Mignon. 

Albion.  These  favorites  of  the  Prince,  each  wearing 
full-brimmed,  three-cornered  hats,  very  flat  and  very 
wide-spreading,  beneath  which  grinned  their  swarthy, 
tanned,  and  wrinkled  faces,  lighted  by  three  pairs  of 
twinkling  eyes,  were  noticeably  lean,  sinewy,  and  vig- 
orous, like  men  in  whom  sport  had  become  a  passion. 
All  three  were  supplied  with  the  immense  horns  of 
Dampierre,  wound  with  green  worsted  cords,  leaving 
only  the  brass  tubes  visible ;  but  they  controlled  their 
dogs  by  the  eye  and  voice.  Those  noble  animals  were 
far  more  faithful  and  submissive  subjects  than  the  hu- 
man lieges  whom  the  king  was  at  that  moment  address- 
ing ;  all  were  marked  with  white,  black,  or  liver  spots, 
each  having  as  distinctive  a  countenance  as  the  soldiers 
of  Napoleon,  their  eyes  flashing  like  diamonds  at  the 
slightest  noise.  One  of  them,  brought  from  Poitou, 
was  short  in  the  back,  deep  in  the  shoulder,  low-jointed, 
and  lop-eared ;  the  other,  from  England,  white,  fine  as 
a  greyhound,  with  no  belly,  small  ears,  and  built  for 
running.  Both  were  young,  impatient,  and  yelping 
eagerly,  while  the  old  hounds,  on  the  contrary,  covered 
with  scars,  lay  quietly  with  their  heads  on  their  fore- 
paws,  and  their  ears  to  the  earth  like  savages. 

As  the  Englishman  came  up,  the  royal  dogs  and 
huntsmen  looked  at  each  other  as  though  they  said, 
"If  we  cannot  hunt  by  ourselves  his  Majesty's  service 
is  insulted." 

Beginning  with  jests,  the  quarrel  presently  grew 
fiercer  between  Monsieur  Jacquin  La  Roulie,  the  old 
French  whipper-in,  and  John  Barr}',  the  young  islander. 
The  two  princes  guessed  from  afar  the  subject  of  the 
altercation,  and  the  Master  of  the  Hunt,  setting  spurs 


Modeste    Mignon.  349 

to  his  horse,  brought  it  to  an  end  by  saying,  in  a  voice 
of  authorit}7 :  — 

"  Who  drew  the  wood?  " 

" 1,  monseigneur,"  said  the  Englishman. 

"  Very  good,"  said  the  Prince  de  Cadignan,  pro- 
ceeding to  take  Barry's  report. 

Dogs  and  men  became  silent  and  respectful  before 
the  Royal  Huntsman,  as  though  each  recognized  his 
dignity  as  supreme.  The  prince  laid  out  the  daj^s 
work  ;  for  it  is  with  a  hunt  as  it  is  with  a  battle,  and  the 
Master  of  Charles  X.'s  hounds  was  the  Napoleon  of 
forests.  Thanks  to  the  admirable  system  he  has  in- 
troduced into  French  venery,  he  was  able  to  turn  his 
thoughts  exclusively  to  the  science  and  strategy'  of  it. 
He  now  quietly  assigned  a  special  duty  to  the  Prince 
de  Loudon's  establishment,  that  of  driving  the  stag  to 
water,  when,  as  he  expected,  the  royal  hounds  had 
sent  it  into  the  Crown  forest  which  outlined  the  horizon 
directly  in  front  of  the  chateau.  The  prince  knew  well 
how  to  soothe  the  self-love  of  his  old  huntsmen  by  giving 
them  the  most  arduous  part  of  the  work,  and  also  that 
of  the  Englishman,  whom  he  employed  at  his  own  spe- 
cialty, affording  him  a  chance  to  show  the  fleetness 
of  his  horses  and  dogs  in  the  open.  The  two  national 
systems  were  thus  face  to  face  and  allowed  to  do  their 
best  under  each  other's  eyes. 

"Does  monseigneur  wish  us  to  wait  any  longer?" 
said  La  Roulie,  respectfully. 

"  I  know  what  you  mean,  old  friend,"  said  the  prince. 
"  It  is  late,  but  —  " 

"  Here  come  the  ladies,"  said  the  second  whipper-in. 

At  that  moment  the  cavalcade  of  sixteen  riders  was 


850  Modeste   Mignon. 

seen  to  approach,  at  the  head  of  which  were  the  green 
veils  of  the  four  ladies.  Modeste,  accompanied  by  her 
father,  the  grand  equerry,  and  La  Briere,  was  in  the  ad- 
vance, beside  the  Duchesse  de  Maufrigneuse  whom  the 
Vicomte  de  Serizy  escorted.  Behind  them  rode  the 
Duchesse  de  Chaulieu,  flanked  by  Canalis,  on  whom 
she  was  smiling  without  a  trace  of  rancor.  When  they 
had  reached  the  open  space  where  the  huntsmen  with 
their  red  coats  and  brass  bugles,  surrounded  by  the 
hounds,  made  a  picture  worthy  of  Van  der  Meulen,  the 
Duchesse  de  Chaulieu,  who,  in  spite  of  her  embonpoint, 
sat  her  horse  admirably,  rode  up  to  Modeste,  finding  it 
more  for  her  dignit}7  not  to  avoid  that  young  person,  to 
whom  the  evening  before  she  had  not  said  a  single  word. 

When  the  Master  of  the  Hunt  finished  his  compli- 
ments to  the  ladies  on  their  amazing  punctuality,  Ele- 
onore  deigned  to  observe  the  magnificent  whip  which 
sparkled  in  Modeste' s  little  hand,  and  graciously  asked 
leave  to  look  at  it. 

' i  I  have  never  seen  am^thing  of  the  kind  more  beau- 
tiful," she  said,  showing  it  to  Diane  de  Maufrigneuse. 
"  It  is  in  keeping  with  its  possessor,"  she  added,  return- 
ing it  to  Modeste. 

"  You  must  admit,  Madame  la  duchesse,"  answered 
Mademoiselle  de  La  Bastie,  with  a  tender  and  malicious 
glance  at  La  Briere,  "that  it  is  a  rather  strange  gift 
from  the  hand  of  a  future  husband." 

"  I  should  take  it,"  said  Madame  de  Maufrigneuse, 
"as  a  declaration  of  my  rights,  in  remembrance  of 
Louis  XIV." 

La  Briere's  eyes  were  suffused,  and  for  a  moment  he 
dropped  his  reins ;  but  a  second  glance  from  Modeste 


Modeste    Mignon.  351 

ordered    him  not  to  betray  his  happiness.      The   hunt 
now  began. 

The  Due  d'Herouville  took  occasion  to  say  in  a  low 
voice  to  his  fortunate  rival:    "  Monsieur,  I  hope  that\ 
you  will  make  your  wife  happy ;  if  I  can  be  useful  to  I 
you  in  any  way,   command  my  services ;    I  should  be 
only  too   glad  to    contribute    to  the   happiness  of  so 
charming  a  pair." 

This  great  day,  in  which  such  vast  interests  of  heart 
and  fortune  were  decided,  caused  but  one  anxiety  to  the 
Master  of  the  Hunt,  —  namely,  whether  or  not  the  stag 
would  cross  the  pond  and  be  killed  on  the  lawn  before 
the  house ;  for  huntsmen  of  his  calibre  are  like  great 
chess-players  who  can  predict  a  checkmate  under  certain 
circumstances.  The  happy  old  man  succeeded  to  the 
height  of  his  wishes ;  the  run  was  magnificent,  and  the 
ladies  released  him  from  his  attendance  upon  them 
for  the  hunt  of  the  next  day  but  one,  —  which,  however, 
turned  out  to  be  rainy. 

The  Due  de  Verneuirs  guests  stayed  five  days  at  Ros- 
embray.  On  the  last  day  the  Gazette  de  France  an- 
nounced the  appointment  of  Monsieur  le  Baron  de 
Canalis  to  the  rank  of  commander  of  the  Legion  of 
honor,  and  to  the  post  of  minister  at  Carlsruhe. 

When,  early  in  the  month  of  December,  Madame  de 
La  Bastie,  operated  upon  by  Desplein,  recovered  her 
sight  and  saw  Ernest  de  La  Briere  for  the  first  time,  she 
pressed  Modeste's  hand  and  whispered  in  her  ear,  "I 
should  have  chosen  him  myself." 

Toward  the  last  of  February  all  the  deeds  for  the  es- 
tates in  Provence  were  signed  by  Latournelle,  and  about 
that  time  the  family  of  La  Bastie  obtained  the  marked 


352  Modeste   Mignon. 


honor  of  the  king's  signature  to  the  marriage  contract 
and  to  the  ordinance  transmitting  their  title  and  arms  to 
La  Briere,  who  henceforth  took  the  name  of  La  Briere- 
La  Bastie.  The  estate  of  La  Bastie  was  entailed  hy 
letters-patent  issued  about  the  end  of  April.  La  B  Here's 
witnesses  on  the  occasion  of  his  marriage  were  Canalis 
and  the  minister  whom  he  had  served  for  five  years  as 
secretary.  Those  of  the  bride  were  the  Due  d'Herou- 
ville  and  Desplein,  whom  the  Mignons  long  held  in 
grateful  remembrance,  after  giving  him  magnificent  and 
substantial  proofs  of  their  regard. 

Later,  in  the  course  of  this  long  history  of  our  man- 
ners and  customs,  we  may  again  meet  Monsieur  and 
Madame  de  La  Briere-La  Bastie  ;  and  those  who  have 
the  eyes  to  see,  will  then  behold  how  sweet,  how  easy, 
is  the  marriage  yoke  with  an  educated  and  intelligent 
woman  ;  for  Modeste,  who  had  the  wit  to  avoid  the  fol- 
lies of  pedantry,  is  the  pride  and  the  happiness  of  her 
husband,  as  she  is  of  her  family  and  of  all  those  who 
surround  her. 


TIVEESIIl 


University  Press  :  John  Wilson  h  Son,  Cambridge. 


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